'^:: 


::i    '^£:^ 


PRAYER      A<^ 


¥.■■ 


.VILLIAM  WATSON 


/o.//.5*^ 


LIBRARY    OF    THE    THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY 

PRINCETON,     N.    J. 
PRESENTED  BY 

Mrs.  Donald  Sinclair 


BV  205  .W376 
Watson,  William. 
Prayer 


r\c  5 


PRAYE 


O' 


1     '. 


?yA 


f'a,'GI(lALSt^ 


WILLIAM  WATSON,  M.A 

0LAT70HT0N,  BIBKENHXiS 


CINCINNATI :  JENNINGS  AND  GRAHAM. 
NEW  YORK:  EATON  AND  MAINS. 


MY  WIFE 


CONTENTS 


I.  THE  NATURE  OF  PRAYER          •  »          •       9 

II.  THE  PURPOSE  OF  PRAYER  .  .     32 

III.  THE  CONDITIONS  OF  PRAYER  .  .          ,52 

IV.  THE  DIFFICULTIES  OF  PRAYER  .  .     ,     74 

V.  THE  GAIN  OF  PRAYER      ,          .  •          ,96 


L 

THE   NATUEE   OF  PKATER. 

If  one  were  to  write  a  history  of 
Christian  prayer  we  should  possess  a 
record  of  the  lives  of  the  saintliest  souls. 
It  would  indeed  be  a  narrative  of  human 
incidents,  but  with  very  much  in  it  that 
could  not  be  readily  explained  in  the 
terms  of  ordinary  human  experience. 
There  would  certainly  be  more  of  God 
than  of  man  in  it,  but  we  should  not  be 
unwilling  to  accept  it  though  an  air  of 
mystery  hung  about  it  all  which  we 
could  neither  penetrate  nor  raise.  There 
would  be  much  in  it  that  would  be 
kindred  to  our  own  feeling  and  life.  A 
history  of  prayer  would  be  the  history  of 
religion,  the  account  of  the  origin  and 
end  of  man's  spiritual  beHefs  and  hopes. 
It  would  be  the  rehearsal  of  God's  long 


10  PRAYER. 


intercourse  with  the  race,  at  their  lowest 
and  at  their  best. 

That  history  cannot  yet  be  written. 
The  time  for  it  has  not  come.  We  shall 
only  be  able  to  read  it  in  that  far-off  day 
when  man's  life  has  been  spiritually  per- 
fected, and  when  God's  love  has  subdued 
all  things  to  itself,  and  He  is  all  in  all. 

Prayer  is  a  great  necessity,  as  well  as 
a  great  duty,  an  instinct,  as  it  is  an 
obligation.  It  is  natural  for  us  to  pray. 
We  are  never  so  wise  as  when  we  pray. 
It  is  then  we  are  completely  and  trans- 
parently ourselves.  And  we  are  wisest 
when, though  it  be  but  for  a  few  moments, 
we  withdraw  ourselves  from  human  inter- 
course, and  from  crowded  hours,  and 
with  our  personal  wants  and  burdens, 
fall  down  alone  before  our  Father,  and 
tell  Him  all,  and  gain  the  calm  and 
strength  of  His  fellowship.  It  is  then 
we  best  understand  how  we  can  become 
His  children  again.  Such  knowledge 
will  not  come  readily  to  us  amid  the 
stress  of  ordinary  toil.      Solitary  prayer 


THE    NATURE    OP   PRAYER,  11 


is,  among  its  other  blessings,  an  occasion 
of  unusual  insight  into  God's  will  and 
our  own  needs.  Truth  and  duty  are 
disclosed  to  us  then  as  in  no  other  hour, 
and  a  man  never  knows  God  or  himself 
except  in  an  interview  at  which  there  is 
present  no  one  but  God  and  himself. 

Besides,  there  are  regions  of  emotion 
and  experience  in  every  human  spirit 
where  certainly  no  stranger  dare  intrude, 
and  with  which  our  best-loved  friend 
may  not  attempt  to  intermeddle.  We 
are  never  so  safe  as  when  we  are  near 
God.  There  is  no  possibility  of  disguise 
there.  We  may  indeed  play  falsely  with 
ourselves  in  such  a  sacred  act,  but  our 
insincerity  destroys  our  prayer,  and 
we  gain  nothing  but  shame  and  self- 
contempt. 

What  is  prayer?  Many  definitions 
have  been  given ;  the  Bible  gives  us 
none.  This  silence  is  suggestive.  The 
Bible  never  proves  the  reality  of  prayer 
any  more  than  it  proves  the  existence  of 


12  PRATER. 


God.  It  takes  the  one  for  granted  as 
completely  as  the  other.  Its  doctrine  is 
a  simple  one :  God  exists ;  He  is  the 
rewarder  of  them  that  diligently  seek 
Him.  God  cannot  but  be ;  man  cannot 
but  cry  to  Him.  And  so  it  has  no 
account  to  give  of  the  reason  why  man 
has  always  prayed,  or  of  the  methods  by 
which  God  has  always  met  his  prayer. 

Any  difficulty  that  may  be  felt  by  us 
to-day  with  respect  to  the  origin  and 
nature  of  prayer  is  as  old  as  prayer  itself 
is.  Man  still  prays,  though,  after  all  these 
centuries  of  experience  he  remains  quite 
ignorant  of  the  root  and  scope  and  laws 
of  prayer.  He  may  have  *'  no  language 
but  a  cry,"  but  he  feels  he  has  to  utter 
that  cry,  however  blindly,  to  some 
one.  From  the  first  day  of  his  existence 
prayer  has  been  one  of  the  strongest 
forces  in  his  nature.  It  expressed  itself 
in  his  recurring  sense  of  weakness  under 
the  pressure  of  his  ignorance.  It  came 
with  his  tears  when  sorrow  struck  his 
heart,  and  loss  changed  his  home.    It 


THE   NATURE   OF   PRAYER.  13 

came  with  his  joys  when  their  very  fresh- 
ness made  him  sing  his  song  of  thaoJiful- 
ness.  It  has  always  been  with  him,  a 
power  as  real  as  his  power  of  sight  and 
hearing  and  speech.  It  is  his  soul 
breathing  in  its  effort  to  live.  It  will 
continue  as  long  as  mankind  lasts. 
Prayer  is  man's  life  touching  its  source. 
Clement  of  Alexandria  says  "  the 
prayers  God  hears  are  the  thoughts 
within  our  mind."  T.  H.  Green  defines 
prayer  as  "  a  wish  referred  to  God."  The 
Shorter  Catechism  says  :  "  Prayer  is  the 
offering  up  of  our  desires  unto  God  for 
things  agreeable  to  His  will,  in  the  name 
of  Christ,  with  confession  of  our  sins 
and  thankful  acknowledgment  of  His 
mercies."  These  may  not  be  full  defini- 
tions— they  may  rather  be  descriptions 
of  prayer — but  they  express  what  is  at 
the  very  basis  of  prayer,  a  sense,  not 
only  of  relationship  to  God  in  virtue  of 
a  common  nature,  but  a  sense  of  depend- 
ence on  Him  as  the  only  source  of  help 
in  time  of  weakness  and  need.     The  very 


14  PRATER. 


existence  of  this  instinct  helps  to  explain 
the  coarse  idolatry  of  the  savage  as  truly 
as  the  happy  worship  of  the  Christian. 
It  is  not  a  vague  force  that  terminates 
nowhere.  Man  is  what  he  is,  a  grander 
being  than  the  creatures  he  fears  or 
slays,  simply  because  of  this  reaching 
out  of  his  nature  to  something,  or  some 
one,  beyond  himself.  The  most  foolish 
judgment  ever  passed  on  prayer  is  that 
which  calls  it  a  fiction,  an  invention,  an 
imagination  of  man.  It  is  the  divinest 
thing  man  has.  It  is  because  he  is  a 
praying  being  that  man  is  a  rehgioua 
being.  A  prayerless  religion  is  no 
religion.  And  the  more  spiritual  the 
religion,  the  purer  and  loftier  is  the 
prayer,  and  man  is  never  at  his  best  and 
strongest  as  a  moral  creature,  except  in 
those  times  when  prayer,  "  man's  rational 
prerogative,"  as  Wordsworth  terms  it,  is 
simplest  and  most  confidential. 

Whatever  may  be  the  direction  of  the 
future  development  of  the  human  race, 
it  cannot  have  the  comfort  and  hope  of 


THE   NATURE   OF   PRAYER.  15 

religion  without  the  reaUty  of  prayer. 
As  prayer  lessens,  the  force  of  the  unseen 
lessens.  We  are  amazed  at  the  quick 
progress  of  mankind,  and  never  has  the 
advance  been  more  rapid  than  in  our 
own  generation,  and  yet  with  all  the 
changes  which  our  civilisation  has 
wrought,  our  common  human  nature  in 
its  roots  and  tendencies  remains  quite 
unaltered.  The  increase  of  our  goods 
has  not  satisfied  our  hunger.  The 
hunger  indeed  is  the  occasion  of  the 
increase,  and  did  we  not  ever  cry  for 
more  we  should  have  no  gladness  in 
any  gain.  The  most  ancient  thing  in 
human  life  is  this  inner  yearning.  Man 
is  not  content  with  tilling  his  fields  and 
rounding  off  his  daily  labour  with  nightly 
sleep.  He  associates  with  his  fellows,  but 
leaves  them  again  and  again,  persuaded 
that  they  are  as  feeble  and  as  destitute 
as  himself.  He  wants  something  more 
than  the  joy  of  labour  and  society.  He 
will  stretch  out  his  hands,  and  lift  his 
thoughts  beyond  himself  and  his  place, 


16  PBAYER. 

and  believe  that  some  one  unseen  takes 
note  of  all  the  movements  of  his  inner 
life. 

This  haunting  sense  of  incompleteness 
cannot  be  a  vain  imagination,  and  so 
strong  a  tendency  to  call  on  God,  cannot 
be  based  on  a  fictitious  or  passing  senti- 
ment. No  force  in  him  can  thrive  or 
grow  unless  it  have  its  adequate  environ- 
ment, and  the  cry  that  breaks  so  often 
from  within  his  heart  must  have  its 
answer  from  without.  The  eye  was 
made  for  light,  and  the  sunshine  falls  on 
sea  and  meadow  and  flower,  and  makes 
man's  spirit  rejoice.  The  ear  was  made 
for  sound,  and  the  music  of  bird  and 
stream  and  human  voice  lifts  him 
upward  to  wide  invisible  realms.  The 
human  spirit  in  its  very  make  justifies 
the  reasonableness  of  prayer :  and  the 
prayer  it  prays  is  as  much  the  sign  of 
its  own  natural  way  of  living,  as  it  is 
the  expression  of  its  ignorance  and  help- 
lessness and  its  need  of  God. 

There  is  nothing  grander  than  a  soul 


THE   NATURE    OF   PEATBR.  17 


on  bended  knees.  Is  there  not  some 
significance  in  the  construction  of  our 
life,  when  we  find  that  this  natural 
instinct  of  prayer  is  fortified  by  experi- 
ences of  various  kinds  that  drive  us, 
almost  against  our  will,  outside  of  and 
beyond  ourselves  ?  Man  has  ever  been 
a  seeker,  a  wanderer  in  a  world  too 
strange  and  cold  and  uncertain  to  be  his 
home.  If  he  has  journeyed  in  strange 
places  and  stumbled  painfully  in  the 
darkness,  his  hands  have  always  been 
stretched  out,  if  haply  they  might  find 
a  guide  whose  friendly  aid  would  be 
abiding,  and  his  ear  has  ever  listened 
for  a  message  he  could  trust. 

•*  Long,  long  since,  undower'd  yet,  our  spirit 
Roam'd  ere  birth  the  treasuries  of  God, 
Saw  the  gifts,  the  power  it  might  inherit 
Ask'd  an  outfit  for  its  earthly  road." 

Man  is  lonely,  blind,  lost,  until  he  finds 
God  and  speaks  to  Him,  and  God's  joy 
is  not  complete  until  He  finds  His  child 
ftnd  hears  him  pray. 

p.  V 


18  PRAYEE. 

The  Bible  always  honours  and  rever. 
ences  this  instinct  of  prayer.  Its  serious 
regard  for  man  at  his  best  is  one  of 
those  notes  of  Scripture  which  are  as 
true  and  deep  as  its  picture  of  God's 
love  for  him  at  his  worst.  It  is  a  bock 
of  prayers,  because  it  is  a  history  of 
human  hearts.  For  us  in  these  later 
days  it  is  impressive  to  turn  back  the 
pages  of  Scripture  and  read  the  prayers 
of  that  earlier  time,  and  learn  how  easily 
religion  was  made  to  fit  into  life,  and 
how  glad  and  fearless  human  hearts 
were  in  God.  There  was  no  hesitancy 
in  their  voice  when  these  people  spoke 
to  their  unseen  Lord.  In  whatever 
darkness  He  might  dwell,  they  were 
sure  He  heard.  Like  Faber's  old 
labourer,  their 

*•  One  thought  was  God: 
In  that  one  thought  they  abode, 
For  ever  in  that  thought  more  deeply  sinking,** 

He  was  their  nearest  Friend,  and  it  was 
no  more  unnatural  for  them    to    call 


THE   NATUKE   OP   PBAYER.  19 

upon  His  name  and  to  keep  in  fellow- 
ship with  Him,  than  it  would  be  for  a 
child  in  his  father's  house  to  ask  gifts 
from  his  father's  hands. 

We  might  expect  that  these  prayers 
would  read  like  stumbling  ventures,  the 
tentative  struggles  of  half-awakened 
souls  who  were  ignorant  of  the  way  in 
which  they  sought  to  go,  and  uncertain 
of  the  help  they  needed.  It  is  not  so. 
They  are  prayers  that  carry  a  strength 
that  only  confiding  natures  have,  and 
are  as  pure  as  are  the  cries  of  the  wiser 
Christian  souls  of  our  modern  time. 
We  marvel  at  the  moral  heights  to 
which  the  men  and  women  of  that  day 
rose,  and  the  readiness  with  which 
they  walked  those  heights  with  God. 
Life,  it  is  true,  was  not  so  complex  as 
it  has  since  become,  but  the  burdens 
and  fears  and  sins  of  the  personal  soul 
were  not  less  oppressive  than  they  have 
ever  been.  People  then  wept  and  failed, 
hoped  and  despaired,  as  unmistakably 
as  people  do  now,  and  felt  as  keenly,  too, 

b2 


20  PRAYER. 


the  pain  and  perplexity  of  existence. 
But  they  could  step  fearlessly  where 
we  move  haltingly.  They  could  not 
tell  whither  they  went,  nor  altogether 
why  they  went,  but  they  always  knew 
to  whom  they  went.  Fearing  the  Lord 
with  all  the  filial  reverence  that  comes 
from  long  experience.  His  secret  was 
with  them,  and  they  greatly  dared  and 
greatly  believed. 

Look  at  such  a  career  as  that  of 
Abraham ;  full  of  interests  and  duties, 
and  not  unmixed  with  gross  faults,  yet  he 
holds  himself  in  such  terms  of  fellowship 
with  the  Most  High  that  he  is  known 
distinctively  as  "  the  friend  of  God." 
The  patriarch's  acceptance  of  the  divine 
will  is  not  a  blind  obedience,  but  an 
intelligent  and  devout  surrender.  He 
is  too  sure  of  God's  word  to  believe  He 
will  mislead.  His  prayer  is  trustful 
conversation,  with  all  the  wonder  of  a 
child  in  the  heart  of  it,  but  all  the 
unreserved  confidence  of  the  child  as 
well.    He  builds  his  altars  as  he  journeys 


THE   NATURE   OF    PRAYER.  21 

from  place  to  place,  reverently  worships 
his  unseen  Guide,  "  calls  upon  the  name 
of  the  Lord,"  and  quietly  waits  the  divine 
direction.  What  the  Christian  mystics 
of  the  middle  ages  loved  to  call  the 
practice  of  the  presence  of  God  was  the 
continual  habit  of  his  soul.  It  seems 
to  have  caused  him  no  surprise  that  his 
Divine  Visitor  should  come  and  go  while 
he  is  occupied  with  his  needful  work, 
and  should  talk  to  him  of  great  things 
yet  to  be,  and  hedge  his  pastoral  life  with 
promises  and  hopes  that  strengthened 
his  faith  and  made  ordinary  things 
sublime.  "  And  the  Lord  appeared  unto 
him  as  he  sat  in  the  tent  door  in  the 
heat  of  the  day." 

Prayer  in  that  old  time  was  con- 
verse,— unrestrained,  devout  intercourse 
with  God  about  the  common  incidents 
of  life :  the  day's  wanderings,  the  day's 
labour,  the  cares  of  the  family,  the  life 
of  the  children,  the  disposal  of  property, 
and  all  the  future  too  of  the  unborn 
generations.      And    whatever    criticism 


PRAYER. 


may  make  of  these  Old  Testament  stories 
it  cannot  destroy  the  reality  and  beauty 
of  the  filial  spirit  that  breathes  through 
them,  the  recognition  of  God  as  the 
closest  friend,  unfailing  in  His  provi- 
dence and  love.  Man  does  not  make 
fictions  out  of  his  holiest  emotions,  and 
then  fit  them  to  the  facts.  Had  the 
facts  not  been  what  they  were,  these 
emotions  could  not  have  taken  the  course 
they  did.  These  make  prayer  possible. 
It  is  one  thing,  however,  to  have  a  sense 
of  God,  and  another  to  believe  that  He  is 
near.  It  was  belief  in  His  nearness 
that  made  the  prayers  of  these  men  and 
women  strong.  They  could  write  no 
philosophy  of  prayer,  and  only  very 
rarely  did  they  question  either  its  neces- 
sity or  value.  They  seem  to  have  felt, 
what  we  in  our  day  have  almost  failed  to 
feel,  that  prayer  is  always  a  test  of  char- 
acter. A  man  is  never  himself  unless 
he  can  deliberately  place  himself  within 
the  light  of  God,  and  stand  still  while  it 
streams  into  every  corner  of  his  life. 


THE   NATURE   OP   PRATER.  28 

Not  a  few  of  us  dread  the  sight  of  our  own 
hearts  when  it  is  given  us  in  that  way. 
Prayer,  as  much  as  conscience,  is  apt  "  to 
make  cowards  of  us  all,"  just  because  it 
is  the  steady  confronting  of  self  with 
God,  when  His  hand  unveils  the  con- 
cealed and  shameful  things  of  our  soul. 
As  a  man  prays,  so  a  man  is. 

The  visible  life  of  these  men  and 
women  of  the  Old  Testament  was  so  much 
touched  by  the  invisible,  that  they  lived 
always  within  the  scrutiny  of  the  divine 
judgment.  That  is  why  they  put  them- 
selves so  completely  into  their  prayers. 
There  are  no  confessions,  or  longings,  or 
thanksgivings  in  any  religious  literature, 
like  those  in  the  Old  Testament.  Even 
their  selfishness,  as  we  should  term  it,  is 
redeemed  from  sordidness  by  the  over- 
mastering thought  of  God  which  is  in 
the  mind  of  him  who  prays.  Jacob  can- 
not keep  the  bargaining  spirit  out  of 
his  most  solemn  vows,  but  it  is  his  con- 
sciousness of  God  that  saves  his  prayer 
from    degenerating    to    the    low    level 


24  PRAYER. 


to  which  it  might  easily  enough  have 
fallen.  "  If  God  will  be  with  me  and 
will  keep  me  in  this  way  that  I  go,  and 
will  give  me  bread  to  eat  and  raiment  to 
put  on,  so  that  I  come  again  to  my 
father's  house  in  peace,  then  shall  the 
Lord  be  my  God ;  and  this  stone  which 
I  have  set  up  for  a  pillar  shall  be  God's 
house,  and  of  all  that  Thou  shalt  give  me, 
I  will  surely  give  the  tenth  unto  Thee." 
A  crude  prayer,  we  say ;  narrow  in  its 
aim,  with  no  wide  horizon,  no  self-for- 
getfulness  and  quiet  gratitude ;  and  yet 
through  it  all  there  is  the  recognition  of 
the  relationship  of  the  soul  to  the 
eternal,  the  link  that  binds  the  wan- 
derer to  the  yearning  heart,  the  con- 
viction that  after  all,  go  where  he  will 
and  do  what  he  may,  he  can  never  be 
better  off  than  when  he  keeps  close  to 
his  God.  A  man  who  begins  with  that 
estimate  of  himself  is  certain,  as  exper- 
iences increase,  to  reach  a  higher  view 
some  day,  and  to  work  with  a  devouter 
idea  of  the  Almighty.     Christian  people 


THE    NATURE    OF    PRAYER.  25 


even  in  our  own  time,  with  their  larger 
knowledge  of  God  and  more  varied 
experience  of  life,  have  not  seldom 
uttered  more  selfish  prayers,  and  have 
carried  a  mercenary  motive  into  what 
seemed  their  most  earnest  supplications. 
They  have  worked  with  an  impoverished 
idea  of  God.  But  in  the  case  of  the 
religious  souls  of  the  early  world,  whose 
histories  are  written  for  us  in  the  Old 
Testament,  it  was  the  conviction  of  God 
as  brooding  constantly  over  them,  mov- 
ing in  their  actions,  and  will,  and  affection, 
that  dominated  their  life.  It  had  woven 
itself  inextricably  into  every  fibre  of 
their  moral  nature.  It  was  the  secret  of 
their  goodness;  it  explains  the  pain  of 
their  remorse,  the  hope  they  felt  amid 
their  sorest  disappointments  and  sorrows, 
and  the  calm  with  which  they  died. 
The  sunshine  has  no  service  to  give  for 
the  flower  that  stays  within  the  dull 
narrow  corner  of  the  field.  These  men 
and  women  lived  in  the  open,  and 
were  ready  to   let   God  see  them    and 


26  PRAYER. 


teach  them,  and  work  His  will  within 
them.  They  never  gave  up  prayer, 
because  they  did  not  give  up  God. 

Petition  was  the  least  part  of  their 
prayer.  Prayer  was  such  complete  sub- 
mission to  the  authority  of  God  as  would 
enable  them  to  have  His  will  done 
through  them.  Abraham  prays  for  a 
son,  but  it  is  not  more  for  the  gladness 
of  his  home  than  that  by  such  a  gift  he 
may  understand  that  incredible  word 
that  had  come  to  him  in  an  earlier  day, 
that  his  descendants  would  possess  the 
land  into  which  he  had  gone  as  a 
stranger.  He  cannot  read  the  future 
unless  the  facts  of  the  present  are  more 
visible.  His  prayer,  therefore,  is  the 
honest  expression  of  an  eager  childlike 
soul  who  can  trust  God,  but  yet  wishes 
to  know  His  way.  Do  we  not  love  this 
man  all  the  more  that  there  is  hesitancy, 
wonder,  in  his  prayer  ?  His  emotions  are 
our  own.  He  speaks  not  our  language,  he 
lives  not  in  our  land  or  time,  but  his  sur- 
prise is  our  surprise  and  his  fear  our  fear. 


THE   NATURE    OF   PEAYER.  27 

Eliezer  asks  that  God  may  give  him 
good  speed  on  his  journey,  but  it  is  all 
for  the  sake  of  the  master  he  serves. 
He  has  a  simple  doctrine  of  God.  He 
believes  that  God  is  in  life,  moves  and 
works  in  all  its  common  business. 
He  does  not  ask  to  be  saved  from  an 
unpleasant  task,  he  only  wan  s  to  be 
helped  to  interpret  providence  and  read 
signs  and  tokens  of  the  divine  will  in 
casual  occurrences.  He  is  sending  his 
faith  and  prayer  to  practice. 

We  lose  more  perhaps  by  what  we 
leave  out  of  our  prayers  than  by  what  we 
wrongly  place  within  them.  The  narrow 
survey  of  our  own  needs  limits  our  sup- 
plications, and  makes  us  less  conscious 
of  the  wealth  and  willingness  of  God. 
The  faith  that  can  venture  far  is  the 
faith  that  can  carry  the  most  to  God,  and 
where  we  are  perplexing  ourselves  about 
the  range  of  our  petitions  and  the  reality 
of  God's  interest  in  us,  this  serving  man 
by  the  well  is  firmly  holding  the  wise 
and  helping  Hand. 


28  PRAYER. 

If  prayer  reveals  our  thought  of  God 
it  also  shows  us  ourselves.  Prayer  indeed 
is  less  a  beseeching  of  the  divine  Heart 
than  a  proof  of  our  own  spiritual 
worth.  "  Behold  he  prayeth,"  and  a 
man  is  estimated  by  his  prayer.  Prayer 
indicates  the  measure  of  our  faith  in 
Him  to  whom  we  speak.  It  declares  in 
what  degree  we  are  hoping  in  His  sym- 
pathy and  love,  but  it  affirms  also  our 
thought  about  our  own  character.  It 
discloses  whether  our  life  is  attached  to 
God  because  of  what  God  is  in  Himself, 
or  because  of  what  we  expect  Him  to 
give  us,  whether  we  love  Him  for  a  gain 
which  is  merely  a  temporal  comfort,  or 
for  a  godliness  which  is  eternal  life. 

The  simplicity  and  naturalness  that 
mark  the  prayers  of  the  Old  Testament 
are  found  in  those  recorded  in  the  New 
Testament,  and  especially  in  the  prayers 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  His  life  was 
spent  continually  in  doing  good,  wholly 
consecrated  to  its  great  spiritual  purpose, 
but  was  full  of  prayer,  finding  occasions 


THE    NATURE    OF   PRAYBB.  29 

and  hours  in  which  it  was  alone  with 
God.  It  is  not  possible  for  us  to  under- 
stand fully  why  it  was  needful  He  should 
pray.  Few  details  are  given  of  His  lonely 
vigils.  What  He  said  in  those  hours  no 
human  pen  has  written.  The  roots  of 
His  inner  life  were  buried  far  down  in 
holy  ground.  Yet  we  can  trace  here  and 
there,  above  the  surface,  small  portions  of 
these  roots.  We  have  not  only  the  record 
of  His  actions,  and  the  reverence  and  calm 
with  which  He  blessed  the  bread  before 
He  brake  it,  and  prayed  before  He 
healed,  but  the  mention  of  an  occasional 
word  like  "  Abba "  that  showed  how 
strongly  His  soul  trusted  God. 

And  once  He  stated  the  contents  of 
one  of  His  own  prayers.  "  Simon,  Simon, 
behold  Satan  asked  to  have  you  that  He 
might  sift  you  as  wheat:  but  I  made 
supplication  for  thee  that  thy  faith  fail 
not."  What  a  startling  announcement 
to  Peter,  what  a  disclosure  of  the  sym- 
pathetic intercession  of  the  greatest 
heart  in  the  universe !     The  two  prayers 


80  PEAYER. 


whose  words  are  preserved,  the  prayer 
of  thanksgiving  which  He  offered  when 
His  disciples  returned  with  joy  exulting 
in  their  victories  over  the  demons,  and 
His  prayer  in  Gethsemane,  show  not 
merely  that  prayer  was  natural  to  Christ, 
but  a  great  necessity  and  delight. 

His  prayers  are  brief,  spontaneous, 
earnest.  He  sees  things  as  they  are, 
knows  the  moral  perils  of  the  world,  the 
temptations  that  assault  the  human  will 
and  heart,  and  feels  that  God  must  be 
sought  for  refuge  and  strength.  And  we 
may  well  believe  that  such  stories  as  He 
told  of  the  friend  petitioning  at  midnight 
(Luke  xi.,  5 — 8),  the  child  asking  for  food 
(Luke  xi.,  11 — 13),  and  the  importunate 
widow  (Luke  xviii.,  1 — 8),  were  spoken 
out  of  the  secrets  of  His  own  supplica- 
tion, and  His  own  experience  of  need. 
The  simplicity  of  His  prayers  was  not 
disturbed  by  any  shadow  of  misgiving  as 
to  their  utility  and  place  in  His  own  life. 
The  faith  of  His  soul  in  God,  His  love 
for  holy  things.  His  conflict  in  an  evil 


THE   NATURE    OF   PRAYER.  SI 

world,  the  hunger  of  His  heart  for  fellow- 
ship, His  devotion  to  His  friends  and  to 
the  weary  lost  souls  that  followed  Him, 
made  him  pray;  and  not  once  only,  we 
may  be  certain,  but  often  was  it  true, 
**He  continued  all  night  in  prayer  to 
God." 


n. 

THE  PURPOSE   OF  PRATEE. 

To  pray  is  to  speak  to  God.  Can  we 
tell  God  anything  which  He  does  not 
know?  If,  in  our  speaking  to  God, 
we  ask  Him  for  anything,  is  it  possible 
for  us  by  so  asking  to  overcome  some 
reluctance  on  His  part  to  grant  our 
request  ?  Is  He  not  always  willing  and 
merciful  and  kind,  and  does  our  crying 
to  Him  make  Him  more  so  ?  Can  we  by 
anything  we  say  affect  His  will  and 
work  a  change  in  His  mind  ?  If  we  can, 
does  this  not  mean  that  the  unchange- 
able God  can  by  the  importunity  of  man 
be  made  to  alter  His  purposes,  and  if  He 
alters  them  in  response  to  our  entreaty, 
is  He  not  thereby  finite  rather  than 
infinite?  If  God  can  listen  to  man's 
will,  how  can  His  own  will  be  done  ? 


THE  PURPOSE  OP  PRATER.      88 


These  are  questions  which,  in  more  or 
less  varying  forms,  occur  to  every  mind 
that  thinks  seriously  about  prayer.  These 
questions  will  always  be  asked.  They 
arise  inevitably  from  the  very  nature  of 
prayer.  It  is  a  relationship  of  the  finite 
spiritof  man  with  the  infinite  Spirit  whom 
we  call  God.  All  problems  that  gather 
round  this  relationship  have  their  diffi- 
culties. On  the  intellectual  side  they 
are  beyond  our  present  knowledge,  but 
there  is  another  side  where  they  do  not 
press  at  all. 

Prayer  is  communion  with  God,  the 
inward  speech  of  the  human  heart  with 
its  Creator.  We  have  regarded  prayer 
too  much  as  petition,  and,  with  this 
inadequate  idea  of  it,  we  have  limited  its 
range  and  often  questioned  its  force.  It 
is  quite  true  that  when  we  pray  we  beg, 
but  we  are  something  more  than  sup- 
pliants, and  the  highest  act  of  the  soul  is 
not  asking.  It  would  be  strange  all  the 
same  if  we  did  not  ask,  and  ask  very  fre- 
quently.    The  inevitable  imperfections 

p.  0 


34  PRATER. 


of  our  life  make  us  beggars.  The  better 
we  know  ourselves  the  better  we  know 
our  defects.  The  self-complacency  that 
asks,  "What  lack  I  yet?"  is  the  mark 
of  a  life  that  is  morally  dead.  The  soul 
is  overburdened  by  its  own  unfinished 
life.  Its  contini  il  movement  downwards 
or  upwards  is  the  evidence  of  a  great 
recurring  need.  The  man  who  does  not 
ask  for  something  is  scarcely  a  human 
being. 

To  limit  prayer,  however,  to  petition, 
is  to  limit  the  free  movement  of  man's 
own  spirit.  He  can  be  other  than  a 
beggar,  other  than  even  a  seeker  for  divine 
gifts ;  he  can  prove  himself  a  son  and 
confess  that  his  true  life  only  has  its 
hunger  met  when  he  rests  in  friendship 
with  God.  There  is  a  great  difference 
between  believing  in  prayer  because  you 
get  and  believing  in  it  whether  you  get 
or  are  refused. 

The  quality,  therefore,  of  our  prayers 
may  be  judged  by  the  object  we  have  in 
view.     The  man  who  sincerely  and  in- 


THE  PURPOSE  OP  PRAYER.      85 

telligently  believes  in  God  will  never  be 
satisfied  with  the  position  of  a  suppliant. 
Prayer  is  intercourse  with  God,  and  such 
intercourse  as  a  child  may  freely  have 
with  its  parent.  The  human  household 
is  kept  together,  not  by  its  giving  and 
receiving  of  temporal  things,  but  by  its 
moral  atmosphere,  its  common  confi- 
dence and  affection  ;  and  not  seldom  are 
those  homes  the  richest  that  have  little 
or  nothing  of  this  world's  goods,  but  are 
generous  in  their  attachments,  self-sacri- 
ficing and  self-forgetful  in  their  deeds, 
and  where  the  inmates  feel  themselves 
not  so  much  separate  individuals  as  a 
little  complete  world  whose  every  move- 
ment is  regulated  and  inspired  by  un- 
feigned love. 

The  divine  government  of  the  world 
has,  as  its  central  principle,  the  educa- 
tion of  mankind  out  of  low  conditions 
into  high  conditions ;  and  prayer  works 
in  the  line  of  such  a  growth.  It  is 
designed  to  raise  us  nearer  God,  to 
stimulate  our  nature  to  larger  achieve- 

o2 


36  PBATBR. 


merits,  to  unfold  that  which  is  holiest 
within  us.  It  often  happens  that  the  best 
result  of  our  prayer  is  the  awakening  oi 
our  spirit  to  the  presence  of  God  as  the 
satisfaction  of  our  deepest  need. 

The  source  of  our  most  common  mis- 
judgments  of  prayer  lies  in  our  forget- 
fulness  of  that  truth.  People  are  apt 
to  test  the  validity  as  well  as  the  value 
of  prayer  by  the  answers  that  come 
to  it.  They  very  often  anticipate  the 
answers.  Where  the  answer  does  not 
come  as  they  expected  it,  they  begin 
to  doubt  whether  it  is  worth  their  while 
to  pray.  But  it  needs  little  proof  to 
show  that  this  is  a  mistaken  view  of 
prayer  and  its  purpose.  God  has  not 
promised  to  answer  every  prayer,  nor  is 
every  prayer,  even  when  earnestly  offered 
to  God,  wise  in  the  expression  of  the 
heart's  real  wants.  There  is  no  part  of 
our  life  that  requires  more  scrutiny  and 
carefulness  than  the  devotional  side. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  so  much  is 
said  in  Scripture  about  prayer,  because, 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  PRATEB.      37 

easy  though  praying  seems  to  be  as  an 
act  of  mind  and  soul,  there  is  no  exertion 
of  our  nature  that  ought  to  be  made 
with  more  deliberation  and  wisdom. 
Jacob  is  said  to  have  wrestled  with  a 
divine  combatant  all  through  the  night 
by  the  lonely  stream  side ;  but  he 
wrestled  as  truly  with  himself  as  with  his 
unknown  antagonist.  He  learned  a  great 
lesson  about  prayer  in  that  encounter. 
No  one  should  pass  consciously  and 
deliberately  into  the  presence  of  God 
without  realizing  what  must  be  involved 
in  that  act  and  the  interview  that  follows 
it.  It  is  a  gathering  together  of  the 
soul's  powers  that  they  may  be  firmly 
set  on  God.  We  cannot  collect  ourselves 
for  an  act  of  intercourse  with  our  unseen 
Lord  without  remembering  that  He  is 
wiser  and  holier  than  we.  The  misuse 
of  prayer  is  the  misuse  of  God.  To  con- 
fine it  to  petition  is  to  belittle  God  in  the 
time  of  the  most  solemn  action  of  our 
soul.  "Ye  ask,  and  receive  not,  because 
ye  ask  amiss."     It  is  a  common  error. 


PRATEB. 


What  is  necessary  then  to  a  true  con- 
ception of  the  end  of  prayer?  A  true 
conception  of  God.  Our  prayers  are 
governed  and  moulded  and  inspired  by 
our  thought  of  God.  What  thought  of 
God  is  in  your  mind  when  you  pray  ? 
If  your  prayer  is  wrong,  it  is  because 
your  thought  of  God  is  wrong.  The 
defective  suppKcations  of  Christendom 
spring  from  a  false  idea  of  God. 

We  marvel  at  times  at  the  spacious 
prayers  contained  in  some  of  the  Psalms, 
and  in  some  of  the  prophecies  of  the 
Old  Testament.  How  easily,  yet  how 
grandly,  these  men  of  long  ago  moved 
among  great  thoughts  of  the  Creator. 
The  very  names  they  gave  Him  — 
"Almighty,"  "Everlasting,"  "King," 
"  Lord  of  Hosts," — reveal  the  magnitude 
of  the  ideas  which  dominated  their 
minds.  These  names  indicated  some- 
thing real  and  vast.  They  represented 
the  supremacy  of  the  divine  control, 
its  absoluteness  in  great  things  as  in 
small.     A  man  who  uttered  such  prayers 


THE  PURPOSE  OP  PRAYER.      39 

never  felt  himself  lost  in  the  unlimited 
largeness  of  the  universe,  but  was  sure 
that  He  who  knew  all  and  was  every- 
where could  never  forget  the  least  of 
His  creatures,  or  be  uninterested  in 
him.  ''  0  Lord,  Thou  hast  searched  me 
and  known  me  :  Thou  knowest  my  down- 
sitting  and  mine  uprising.  Thou  under- 
standest  my  thought  afar  off.  There  is 
not  a  word  in  my  tongue  but  lo,  0 
Lord,  Thou  knowest  it  altogether. 
Whither  shall  I  go  from  Thy  spirit, 
or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  Thy  pre- 
sence? Search  me,  0  God,  and  know 
my  heart :  try  me,  and  know  my 
thoughts ;  and  see  if  there  be  any  way 
of  wickedness  in  me,  and  lead  me  in 
the  way  everlasting."  The  majesty  of 
God  and  the  faith  of  man  are  brought 
together  in  thoughts  and  words  that 
are  only  made  possible  to  him  who  in 
endeavouring  to  understand  himself 
strives  to  come  near  in  reverent  belief 
to  his  Creator. 

"  0  Lord,  I  have  heard  the  report  of 


40  PRAYER. 


Thee,  and  am  afraid :  0  Lord,  revive 
Thy  work  in  the  midst  of  the  years :  in 
the  midst  of  the  years  make  known ;  in 
wrath  remember  mercy.  The  moun- 
tains saw  Thee,  and  were  troubled ;  the 
sun  and  moon  stood  still  in  their  habita- 
tion. Thou  wentest  forth  for  the  salva- 
tion of  Thy  people.  Although  the  fig 
tree  shall  not  blossom,  neither  shall 
fruit  be  in  the  vines,  yet  I  will 
rejoice  in  the  Lord;  I  will  joy  in  the 
God  of  my  salvation." 

Are  we  surprised  that  the  men  who 
thought  so  grandly  about  God  should 
write  so  grandly  about  Him?  Had 
they  not  confided  in  Him  so  fully, 
could  they  have  written  of  Him  and  of 
themselves  so  tranquilly?  "The  Lord 
is  my  shepherd ;  I  shall  not  want.  He 
maketh  me  to  lie  down  in  green  pastures, 
He  leadeth  me  beside  the  still  waters. 
He  restoreth  my  soul.  Yea,  though  I 
walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow 
of  death,  I  will  fear  no  evil,  for  Thou  art 
with  me :  Thy  rod  and  Thy  staff,  they 


THH  PURPOSE  OF  PRAYER.      41 

comfort  me.  Surely  goodness  and 
mercy  shall  follow  me  all  the  days  of 
my  life,  and  I  will  dwell  in  the  house 
of  the  Lord  for  ever."  Why  do  we 
love  that  jDsalm  in  the  days  of  our 
sorrow  ?  Is  it  not  for  its  comforting: 
thought  of  God?  The  music  of  its 
language  haunts  us  from  childhood  to 
our  dying  day,  but  behind  its  words  is 
something  more  beautiful  and  restful 
still:  the  presence  of  the  Shepherd;  the 
assurance  of  the  hand  that  never  fails  to 
lift  the  wounded  sheep  from  the  thicket 
and  carry  it  homeward  through  the  dark 
and  the  loneliness. 

So  is  it  with  the  prayers  of  the  New 
Testament.  It  is  the  thought  of  God  in 
the  heart  of  them  that  makes  them 
effectual  and  fervent.  If  Paul  had  had 
no  large  experience  of  God's  fellowship 
and  grace  he  could  not  have  uttered  the 
prayers  for  his  friends  that  are  contained 
in  some  of  his  letters.  There  is  nothing 
timid,  hesitating,  small,  selfish,  about 
these  prayers.      "  I  bow  my  knees  unto 


42  pniTBja. 


the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
from  whom  the  whole  family  in  heaven 
and  earth  is  named,  that  He  would 
grant  you,  according  to  the  riches  of  His 
glory,  that  ye  may  be  strengthened 
with  power  through  His  Spirit  in  the 
inward  man,  that  Christ  may  dwell  in 
your  hearts  through  faith,  to  the  end 
that  ye,  being  rooted  and  grounded  in 
love,  may  be  strong  to  apprehend  with 
all  the  saints  what  is  the  breadth  and 
length  and  height  and  depth,  and  to 
know  the  love  of  Christ,  which  passeth 
knowledge,  that  ye  may  be  filled  unto  all 
the  fulness  of  God."  Could  any  man 
pray  such  a  prayer  for  his  friends  unless 
he  had  a  clear  and  lofty  conception  of 
God  ?  It  is  the  great  earnest  cry  of  a 
great  earnest  heart. 

So  also  is  it  with  such  prayers  of  our 
Lord  as  are  recorded  in  the  Gospels.  We 
cannot  explain  altogether  why  it  was 
that  He  prayed,  but  the  fact  that  He 
did  pray,  and  prayed  frequently  and 
alone,     indicates     that     He     attached 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  PRAYER.      48 

momentous  significance  to  prayer. 
There  is  ample  witness  to  that  in  the 
prayers  that  the  Evangelists  record. 
How  simple  and  unwavering  they  are, 
and  what  far  reaches  they  take  !  ''Holy 
Father,  keep  through  Thine  own  name 
those  whom  Thou  hast  given  Me,  that 
they  may  be  one  even  as  we  are. 
Sanctify  them  through  Thy  truth; 
Thy  word  is-  truth.  Father,  I  will  that 
they  also  whom  Thou  hast  given  Me  be 
with  Me  where  I  am,  that  they  may 
behold  My  glory  which  Thou  hast  given 
Me,  for  Thou  lovedst  Me  before  the 
foundation  of  the  world."  It  is  not 
possible  to  read  such  prayers  without 
feeling  the  breath  of  another  world  upon 
our  spirits. 

And  one  sees  how  inept  is  that  adverse 
criticism  of  prayer  which  is  so  common 
in  our  time,  and  which  regards  it  for  the 
most  part  as  a  beseeching  of  God  for 
certain  things  which  we  cannot  procure 
by  our  own  unaided  labour.  A  prayer- 
less  mind  cannot  discuss  the  virtue  and 


44  PBAYEB. 


place  of  prayer,  any  more  than  a  mind 
untrained  in  geology  can  discuss  a 
problem  in  glaciers  and  rocks.  Experi- 
ence of  prayer  is  needed  to  understand 
what  prayer  is.  The  deeper  the  experi- 
ence of  it  the  more  valued  is  its  strength. 
He  who  can  interpret  fully  the  mind  of 
psalmist  and  prophet,  and  Paul  and 
Christ,  will  be  able  to  understand  some- 
thing of  the  nature  of  prayer.  They  have 
prayed  most  simply  and  triumphantly 
who  have  believed  God  most  fully.  To 
disbelieve  in  prayer  is  very  much  the 
same  thing  as  to  have  no  faith  in 
God.  "He  that  cometh  to  God  must 
believe  that  God  is,  and  that  God  is  the 
rewarder  of  them  that  diligently  seek 
Him.*'  Many  prayers  do  not  seem  to 
be  addressed  to  God  at  all. 

What  we  want  to  make  real  in  prayer 
is  our  thought  of  God's  personality. 
People  believe  in  prayer,  but  they  can- 
not call  up  before  their  mind  such  a 
conception  of  God  as  will  make  them 
certain  that  they  are  speaking  to  One 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  PRAYER.      45 

who  is  as  personal  as  themselves.  We 
can  understand  and  approach  one  another 
as  individuals.  We  can  see  one  another 
andput  ourselves  into  one  another's  place, 
but  "  no  man  hath  seen  God  at  any 
time,"  and  how  are  we  to  think  of  Him 
when  we  quietly  pray  to  Him  ?  Under 
what  form  are  we  to  picture  Him  to  our 
minds  ?  How  are  we  in  our  moments  of 
adoration  and  supplication  to  place  in  the 
very  heart  of  our  spiritual  convictions 
the  image  of  One  who  is  as  much  a  free 
personal  spirit  as  ourselves  ?  Christian 
people  often  acknowledge  that  this  is  a 
distressing  difficulty  to  them.  The  very 
effort  to  conceive  God  as  always  present, 
always  listening,  always  interested  in 
them,  is  thinned  out  into  a  hazy  vision. 
And,  as  a  consequence  of  this,  there  is  no 
intense  feeling  of  personal  relationship 
between  Him  and  them.  It  is  very 
much  the  difficulty  that  is  created  by  the 
difference  between  realising  a  particular 
tree  and  realising  an  atmosphere. 
How  is  that  difficulty  to  be  met  ?    It 


46  PRATBE. 


does  not  seem  to  have  been  felt  very 
keenly  by  the  people  of  Old  Testament 
days.  God  was  very  personal  to  them. 
Every  common  bush  was  afire  with  Him. 
They  spoke  and  acted  as  if  they  saw 
Him.  Elect  souls  who  had  trained 
themselves  to  believe  in  the  moral 
attributes  of  God  came  to  trust  the 
personal  God  Himself.  God's  righteous- 
ness, mercy,  loving-kindness,  truth,  are 
not  so  much  abstract  attributes  of  His 
essential  nature  as  the  forms  through 
which  He  brings  Himself  near  to  man's 
life.  By  the  manifestation  of  these  in 
history  and  in  the  career  of  individuals, 
He  reveals  Himself.  He  cannot  be 
separated  from  these  attributes.  They 
have  no  reality  apart  from  Him,  and  this 
was  the  lesson  which  the  prophets  more 
particularly  and  the  teachers  of  ancient 
Israel  were  continually  insisting  should  be 
learned  by  their  countrymen.  A  few  of 
them  learned  it.  They  could  not  think 
of  goodness  and  righteousness  except  as 
associated  with  one  God,  whose  law  as 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  PRATER.      47 

it  sought  to  rule  men's  lives  was  the 
expression  of  His  mind. 

Nothing  in  human  records  has  been  so 
splendid  as  the  daring  of  their  faith  and 
the  strength  of  their  love.  But  it  was  a 
conception  which  every  mind  could  not 
grasp  or  keep.  As  other  ideas  became 
influential  this  tended  to  become  less  and 
less  definite  and  firm. 

There  came  to  be  in  course  of  time 
necessity  for  a  fuller  expression  of  the 
life  and  will  of  the  Divine  Being.  That 
was  given  by  Jesus  Christ.  He  had  a 
work  to  do  for  man  in  saving  him,  and  a 
work  to  do  for  God  in  making  Him  truly 
known.  "  He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath 
seen  the  Father."  We  take  our  conception 
of  God  from  Christ ;  and  that  conception 
gives  us  the  right  view  of  prayer.  In 
prayer  we  are  not  speaking  to  an  unknown 
God  ;  we  are  holding  communion  with  a 
Father.  The  name  which  Christ  gives 
to  God  elevates  the  whole  idea  of  prayer, 
and  places  within  the  reach  of  us  all  a 
truth  about  the  Creator  which   only   a 


48  PEAYER. 


few  of  the  most  serious  minds  before 
had  reached.  Christ's  teaching  that  God 
is  our  Father  suppHes  us  with  the  belief 
about  God  that  quickens  and  purifies  all 
our  entreaties  and  resolutions.  We  begin 
then  to  understand  that  prayer  is  one  of 
our  privileges  as  His  children,  and  we 
regard  it  less  as  a  means  of  obtaining 
the  gratification  of  our  personal  wishes 
than  as  an  occasion  of  confidential  inter- 
communion by  which  all  our  cares  and 
griefs  pass  from  us  into  the  divine  heart, 
and  we  are  made  of  one  will  with  the 
Father. 

Prayer,  therefore,  should  be  less 
difficult  now  than  once  it  was,  simply 
because  we  know  more  and  better  about 
God.  It  should  be  a  stronger  and  wider 
outflow  of  our  nature.  It  should  carry 
with  it  less  hesitancy,  less  doubt.  It 
should  be  deemed  a  peculiarly  filial  act. 
Unless  you  know  yourself  to  be  God's 
child,  you  will  not  know  how  to  pray. 
To  know  that,  and  to  make  that  know- 
ledge the  abiding  conviction    of    your 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  PRATER.      49 


mind,  is  to  have  a  discernment  of  God's 
purpose  which  cannot  be  gained  in  any 
other  way.  Once  it  is  gained,  what  is 
usually  termed  the  problem  of  prayer 
becomes  very  much  simplified,  and  more 
thought  is  given  to  it  as  a  fact  than  as  a 
problem.  A  man  will  pray  because  he 
is  sure  God  loves  him.  He  will  pray 
without  ceasing,  because  he  loves  and 
trusts  without  ceasing.  He  will  ask,  not 
as  a  stranger  and  alien,  but  as  a  son. 
He  will  not  dictate  to  God  the  answer  to 
his  prayer.  He  will  again  and  again  ask 
for  nothing  but  to  lie  gladly  and  rest- 
fully  in  his  Father's  presence.  And 
even  when  a  refusal  comes  he  will 
interpret  it  so  as  to  recognise  it  as  a 
blessing.  Love  is  never  blind,  such  love 
as  this  at  least;  it  sees,  and  sees  far 
and  steadily.  It  can  bear  up  under 
the  strain  of  the  longest  silence,  and  not 
be  surprised  even  at  the  quick  response 
of  God  that  seems  to  wound.  It  will 
find  the  healing  long  ere  the  wound  goes 
deep. 

P.  D 


50  PRAYER. 


"  God   answers    sharp    and    sudden    on   some 

prayers, 
And  thrusts  the  thing  we  have  prayed  for  in 

our  face, 
A  gauntlet  with  a  gift  in  it." 

Love  finds  the  gift  and  prizes  it,  where 
other  eyes  see  neglect  and  forgetfulness. 

The  purpose  of  prayer  then  is  not  to 
change  the  will  of  God,  but  to  make  us 
fulfil  it.  The  more  intimate  our  friend- 
ship with  Him  the  more  wisely  shall  we 
pray.  We  shall  discern  something  of 
the  design  God  is  working  out  in  us, 
and  we  shall  pray  not  because  we  want 
something,  but  because  we  are  eager  to 
take  the  full  profit  of  our  heritage  and 
cultivate  that  spiritual  kinship  with  God 
which  the  world  tempts  us  to  forget. 

Enlargement  of  spirit  will  come  from 
our  discovery  of  the  real  function  of 
prayer.  With  that  enlargement  we 
shall  think  more  of  the  great  things 
than  of  the  little  things  of  life.  It  is 
said  that  when  Emwson  visited  Carhde 
in  his  Scottish  home  these  two  great 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  PRAYER.      61 

minds  spent  a  whole  night  talking 
earnestly  about  God.  Great  hopes  make 
the  soul  great,  and  he  who  believes 
that  God  is  his  T'Utier  should  always 
pray  with  a  strong  spiritual  hope  beat- 
ing "beneath  his  prayer,  and  lifting  nim 
up  to  heights  among  the  great  ever- 
lasting peaks  of  truth.  He  will  then 
best  understand  how  the  little  things  of 
life  need  not  harass  him,  for  God  works 
in  these  as  really  as  in  great  outstanding 
occurrences. 

"  And  wlien  in  silent  awe  we  wait^ 
And  word  and  sign  forbear, 
The  hinges  of  the  golden  gate 
More  soundless  to  our  prayer.** 


nL 

THE  CONDITIONS   OF   PKAYEB, 

Pbayer  is  confidential  communion 
between  the  heavenly  Father  and  His 
child.  The  laws  of  the  soul's  well-being 
are  as  real  as  those  that  regulate  our 
physical  life.  When  prayer  becomes 
mechanical  it  ceases  to  be  prayer.  The 
more  natural  and  personal  it  is,  the 
more  profoundly  is  its  benediction  felt. 
Prayer  m  essentially  a  personal  solitary 
act  of  the  human  spirit.  Occasions 
should  not  be  few  when  we  are  absolutely 
alone  with  God.  May  it  not  be  because 
we  have  so  largely  fallen  out  of  the  culti- 
vation of  spiritual  solitariness  that  we 
have  so  much  lost  our  faith  in  prayer  ? 
"When  we  are  afraid  of  the  company  of 
our  own  hearts  we  scarcely  care  to  talk 
to  God. 


THE    CONDITIONS    OP    PRAYER.  68 


We  are  not  always  in  the  crowd.  In 
the  most  engrossed  life  there  are  breaks 
and  intervals  that  ought  to  be  wisely 
utilised,  when,  as  Jeremy  Taylor  quaintly 
advises  us  to  do,  "  every  man  can  build 
a  chai^el  in  his  breast,  himself  the 
priest,  his  heart  the  sacrifice,  and  the 
earth  he  treads  on  the  altar."  For 
prayer  is  something  more  than  the 
pious  exercise  of  our  hearts  in  the 
morning  and  evening  moments.  It  is 
conversation,  fellowship  with  God.  The 
reason,  we  may  say,  why  our  Lord  spoke 
frequently  of  withdrawal  from  the  duties 
and  interests  of  the  busy  days,  was  that 
it  was  not  possible  to  maintain  the  filial 
spirit  otherwise.  The  door  must  be 
shut,  and  prayer  must  be  offered  in 
secret  to  the  Father.  In  His  own  history 
too  He  gave  the  illustration  of  its  neces- 
sity. "  And  it  came  to  pass  in  those 
days  that  He  went  into  the  mountain 
to  pray,  and  He  continued  all  night  in 
prayer  to  God."  He  was  always  laying 
emphasis     on    the     closeness    of     the 


64  PRAYER. 


relationship  between  the  soul  and  God. 
And  He  made  people  feel  that,  while  they 
would  shrink  from  allowing  their  dearest 
friends  to  be  the  sharers  of  their  sorrows, 
they  could  be  sure  of  the  attentive  ear 
of  One  who  was  willing  to  wait  long  and 
unweariedly  by  the  door  of  every  human 
life. 

Is  it  not  one  of  the  permanent  con- 
ditions of  prayer  that  it  be  offered  with 
a  clear  apprehension  of  the  personal 
relationship  which  we  occupy  to  God? 
In  the  measure  in  which  we  realise  that 
relationship  are  we  able  to  pray  with  an 
intelligent  faith.  We  are  not  driftwood  on 
an  uncontrolled  sea,  but  souls  in  a  moral 
world  ever  watched  by  a  Fatherly  provi- 
dence. As  the  years  pass  do  we  not  find 
that  this  is  more  and  more  impressively 
true  ?  The  little  child  in  some  hour  of 
its  misfortune,  with  its  troubled  heart, 
comes  close  up  to  its  mother,  and  taking 
her  aside,  stammers  out  amidst  its  tears 
the  tale  of  its  unhappiness.  You  have 
seen  the  gentle  motherly  hand  stroke 


THE    CONDITIONS   OP    PRAYER.  55 


the  weeping  face,  and  you  have  heai:(i 
the  comforting  words  that  sent  it  to  its 
play  again  bright  and  happy  as  before. 
Have  you  ever  seen  a  prodigal  creep 
homeward  from  the  far  country,  and 
halt  at  the  old  doorway  wondering  and 
afraid,  and  then,  when  received  within, 
wait  until  all  had  left  the  room  except 
the  old  glad  father  ere  he  told  the  story 
of  his  shame  ?  Have  you  seen  the  look 
of  forgiveness  in  the  father's  face,  and 
heard  the  affectionate  welcome  back  to 
the  grace  and  peace  and  the  clean 
changed  life  ?  How  natural,  sponta- 
neous, informal,  it  all  is.  One  has  a 
glimpse  then  of  the  deep  places  of  the 
soul.  And  as  the  mother  comforts  the 
child,  as  the  father  restores  the  son,  so 
are  we  consoled  and  received  when  we 
turn  from  the  rough  highways  of  the 
world  to  the  secret  place  of  the  Most 
High.  The  heart  can  be  content  with 
no  lesser  good  than  God. 

It  is  so  with  other  experiences  in  our 
history :  the   loss  of  friends  by  death, 


56  PRAYER. 

and.  what  is  sometimes  worse,  the  aliena- 
tion of  friends  through  misunderstand- 
ing, and  those  private  and  half  sacred 
events  that  make  up  large  sections  of 
our  personal  history,  and  which  our 
nearest  neighbour  never  hears  of  or 
sees.  God's  one  purpose  is  to  get  us  by 
ourselves,  to  make  us  stand  alone  and 
feel  that  He  loves  us  with  a  surpassing 
personal  love.  Have  we  Christian  folk 
of  this  later  day  grown  afraid  of  the 
spiritual  solitudes  where  no  voice  speaks 
but  God's  voice,  still,  small,  whispering  ? 
Have  we  gone  down  from  the  great 
heights  of  faith  which  our  forefathers 
trod  with  so  calm  and  sure  a  foot  ?  They 
were  strong  in  prayer,  because  they 
were  never  afraid  of  the  society  of  their 
own  hearts. 

Is  the  devotional  side  of  our  life 
becoming  the  feeblest  side  ?  We  say  our 
prayers,  but  do  we  pray  ?  We  maintain 
a  pious  custom,  but  do  we  stay  a  long 
time  alone  with  God  ? 

Modern  ways  throw  us  so  much  into 


THE    CONDITIONS    OF    PRAYER.  57 

the  crowd,  that  we  run  the  risk  of  losing 
sight  of  the  claims  of  our  own  personality. 
From  the  religious  point  of  view,  it 
certainly  is  serious  that  the  privacy  of 
life  to-day  is  invaded  by  so  many  kinds 
of  interests  that  leave  little  leisure  for 
prayer.  "  We  have  no  time  to  pray  "  is 
a  complaint  one  hears  too  often,  and 
from  the  lips  of  people  who  ought  not  to 
make  it.  It  means  that  they  have  no 
time  to  think  of  God,  and  no  care  for 
the  real  requirements  of  their  life.  As 
Newman  was  wont  to  say,  the  only  two 
facts  in  the  universe  are  God  and  the 
soul.     The  prayerless  life  ignores  both. 

It  is  not  simply  that  there  is  a  decay 
of  family  worship,  but  of  private  personal 
spiritual  culture.  What  is  taking  its  place? 
Nothing  indeed  that  is  its  equivalent. 
"  For  what  can  a  man  give  in  exchange 
for  his  soul  ?  "  Is  there  any  substitute 
for  God,  and  any  satisfaction  for  the 
hunger  of  the  inner  nature  apart  from 
Him  ?  We  are  multiplying  our  engage- 
ments and  duties ;  we  are  shortening  our 


68  PRAYER. 


times  of  private  prayer.  The  best  claims 
are  being  crowded  out.  We  are  so  much 
with  one  another,  we  have  little  or  no 
liking  to  be  with  ourselves  and  God. 
They  who  never  doubt  the  worth  of 
prayer  are  the  people  who  are  much  in 
solitary  intercourse  with  God.  Turn  to 
the  biographies  of  the  great  men  and 
women  of  Christian  times,  and  you  will 
discover  the  secret  of  their  goodness  and 
influence  in  their  prolonged  hours  of 
spiritual  communion.  They  knew  them- 
selves only  when  they  were  in  the  still 
light  of  God.  They  found  their  strength 
in  His  presence. 

It  is  told  of  the  late  General  Gordon 
that  each  morning  during  his  journey 
in  the  Soudan  country  for  half  an  hour 
there  lay  outside  his  tent  a  white  hand- 
kerchief. The  whole  camp  well  knew 
what  it  meant,  and  looked  upon  the  little 
signal  with  the  utmost  respect.  No  foot 
dared  to  pass  the  threshold  of  that  tent 
while  the  white  guard  lay  there.  No 
message,  however  pressing,  was  to  be 


THE    CONDITIONS    OF    PRAYER.  59 

delivered.  Matters  of  life  and  death 
must  wait  until  that  slight  signal  was 
taken  away.  Every  one  in  that  camp 
knew  that  God  and  Gordon  were  com- 
muning together.  No  strength  will  come 
to  us  for  the  battle  of  life,  no  enthusiasm, 
or  calm,  or  assurance  will  fill  our  soul, 
unless  we  have  such  high  and  solitary 
interviews  with  God.  "  Enter  into  thy 
closet,  and  when  thou  hast  shut  thy  door 
pray  to  thy  Father  who  is  in  secret,  and 
thy  Father  who  seeth  in  secret  will 
reward  thee  openly." 

Another  condition  of  prayer  is  un- 
reserved trust. 

All  prayer  is  based  on  faith.  It  is  the 
utterance  of  the  soul's  confidence.  It  is 
the  acknowledgment  that  weakness  must 
rest  on  infinite  strength,  and  that  that 
strength  will  never  fail.  Do  we  always 
understand  the  force  of  our  own  faith  as 
we  pray?  Do  we  remember  that  it 
implies  we  are  quite  sure  that  God,  being 
truth,  cannot  lie,  that  He  will  keep  His 
word ;  that,  being  a  faithful  Creator,  He 


60  PRAYEB. 

will  not  mock  or  deceive  the  creature 
whom  He  has  made ;  that,  being  the  only 
wise  God,  it  will  be  absolutely  impossible 
for  Him  to  err;    that,  having  infinite 
power.  He  will  never  fail  to  accomplish 
His  will ;  and  that,  being  perfectly  holy, 
He  will  not  be  neglectful  of  the  trustful 
pleadings  of  the  most  sinful  child  who 
seeks  His  face  ?     It  costs  us  something 
to  surrender  ourselves  completely  to  the 
guidance  of  God.     We  believe  that  He  is 
the  rewarder  of  them  that  diligently  seek 
Him,  but  what  if  His  reward  comes  to  us 
in  some  unexpected  and  painful  form  ? 
Shall  we  continue  to  trust  ?     Is  our  con- 
fidence in   God   almost   always   at   the 
breaking  point  when  we  do  not  get  what 
we  ask  ?     Faith  in  any  case  is  not  for 
the  clear  noontide,  but  for  the  midnight 
of  the  soul.     It  is  when  we  cannot  see 
that  we  grasp  the  strong  leading  hand. 
Do  we  not  too  often  test  both  our  prayer 
and  our  faith  by  the  answer  God  gives, 
and  continue  both  to  believe  and  pray  so 
long  as  we  receive  what  we  expect  ? 


THE   CONDITIONS   OF    PRAYER.  61 

The  confusion  which  exists  in  the 
minds  of  many  Christian  people  with 
respect  to  prayer  arises  very  largely 
from  apparent  inconsistencies  in  the 
teaching  of  Scripture  on  the  subject. 
These  inconsistencies,  or  rather  diver- 
gences, are  not  always  observed  by  them. 
We  read  in  many  passages  of  the  Bible, 
for  example,  that  prayer  to  God  is 
absolutely  certain  to  be  answered :  "  Ask, 
and  ye  shall  receive  ;  seek,  and  ye  shall 
find ;  knock,  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto 
you."  "  If  ye  ask  anything  in  My  name,  I 
will  give  it  you."  "  All  things  whatso- 
ever ye  shall  ask  in  prayer  believing  ye 
shall  receive."  We  find  other  passages 
which  indicate  that  prayer  is  limited,  and 
that  the  promises  that  underlie  it  are 
conditional.  Only  as  we  comply  with 
certain  requirements  can  our  prayer  be 
answered.  "  If  ye  abide  in  Me,  and  My 
words  abide  in  you,  ye  shall  ask  what  ye 
will,  and  it  shall  be  done  unto  you." 
"  And  whensoever  ye  stand  praying,  for- 
give if  ye  have  aught  against  any  one, 


62  PRAYER. 

that  your  Father  also  which  is  in  heaven 
may  forgive  you  your  trespasses." 

Now,  whatever  may  be  the  apparent 
teaching  of  isolated  verses,  the  general 
drift  of  Scripture  is  in  the  direction  of 
showing  that  the  answering  of  our 
prayers  is  made  conditional,  first,  on  our 
character  as  suppliants,  and,  second,  on 
the  nature  of  our  prayer  itself.  There 
is  nothing  unreasonable  in  this.  Clearly 
enough,  God  cannot  answer  all  prayers. 
He  is  not  a  capricious  unthinking  Euler. 
He  is  more  concerned  with  the  man  who 
prays  than  with  his  prayer.  It  is  only 
in  our  foolishness  and  haste  we  ourselves 
give  indiscriminately  to  all  who  beg. 
Often  a  refusal  is  the  best  boon.  The 
broad  principle  on  which  we  estimate  the 
worth  of  prayer  is  that,  since  God  is  eager 
to  secure  our  highest  good,  He  will,  if  Ke 
deems  it  necessary,  deny  our  request  or 
accede  to  it.  Trust  has  naturally  a 
drawing  power  upon  the  heart  of  God, 
and  He  will  honour  the  simplicity  of  our 
trust.     He  will  not  violate  the  nature  of 


THE    CONDITIONS    OF    PRAYER.  63 

man.  He  made  that  nature,  and  made 
it  that  it  might  be  completely  possessed 
and  controlled  by  Himself,  but  He  wishes 
that  His  method  of  training  shall  be 
accepted  by  us  as  the  best  method.  The 
mother  will  not  make  herself  unmotherly 
by  thrusting  from  her  the  weak  clinging 
hand  of  her  child.  She  will  hold  it  all 
the  more  firmly  that  she  cannot  put 
within  his  fingers  the  things  the  little 
mouth  has  pleaded  for.  Her  refusal  is 
educating  the  child  to  believe  in  a  love 
wiser,  larger,  than  his  own  wishes.  Our 
prayers  to  God  are  part  of  the  discipline 
to  which  He  is  pleased  to  subject  our 
faith.  Often  those  who  have  hoped  most 
in  Him  have  been  those  whom  He  has 
kept  waiting  long  in  the  silence. 

Our  prayers,  therefore,  will  move 
within  the  limits  of  God's  promises  and 
with  a  wise  appreciation  of  our  real 
worth  to  God.  We  shall  learn  to  ask 
those  things  that  are  best  for  our  spiritual 
equipment  as  His  children.  We  shall 
recognise  that   all   His  promises  have 


64  PRAYER. 


conditions  attached  to  them*  Prayer 
will  never  be  used  by  us  as  a  talisman,  a 
secret  charm  which  is  thought  to  win  for 
us  what  we  wish,  but  a  gateway  into 
God's  heart,  and  thereby  into  our  own. 
We  shall  be  more  eager  to  find  Him  than 
to  enjoy  His  benefits.  Our  prayer  will 
be,  as  Augustine  says  it  is,  "  our  conver- 
sation with  God.  When  we  read,  God 
speaks  to  us  ;  when  we  pray,  we  speak  to 
God."  If  we  trusted  less  in  the  virtue 
of  our  own  prayer,  and  more  in  the 
Father  whose  love  encompasses  our  lives, 
both  our  trust  and  our  prayer  would  be  a 
richer  joy  to  us  than  probably  they  are. 

It  is  the  overloaded  hearts  that  are 
apt  to  pray  the  least.  Life  can  easily 
be  made  to  go  down;  our  soul  readily 
cleaveth  unto  the  dust.  We  cannot  keep 
ourselves  up  except  by  stretching  out 
to  the  unseen  infinite  Father.  Prayer 
therefore  is  the  energy  of  the  soul,  a 
passion  of  desire,  an  agony  of  entreaty, 
a  wrestling  with  God.  Until  we  learn 
that  we  are  on  His  side,  and  our  will  is 


THE    CONDITIONS    OF    PRAYER.  65 

completely  His.  The  prayer  of  faith 
saves  by  its  very  persistence,  its  un- 
wearied and  unrelaxing  confidence  in 
God's  willingness  and  love.  It  is  that 
prayer  that  has  cleansed  and  renewed 
the  weakest  and  the  worst  of  the 
children  of  men.  In  this  wise  did  the 
saints  and  martyrs  call  on  God  in  the 
hour  of  their  calamity.  So  mothers 
have  pleaded  for  their  children  when  the 
world  was  tempting  their  innocent  feet 
to  stray  into  perilous  ways.  So  men 
and  women  everywhere  have  cried  for 
God's  light  and  pity  for  the  wanderer ; 
and  friends  far  away  from  the  old  home 
for  the  hearts  they  have  left  behind.  So 
have  repentant,  shamed  souls  cried  for 
the  Good  Shepherd  to  come  to  their 
bleak  wilderness  and  lead  them  to  rest 
and  God.  So  prayed  the  Holy  Christ 
when  the  pressure  of  the  world's  woe  lay 
painfully  upon  Him  in  Gethsemane.  So 
not  infrequently  must  we  call  on  God, 
"battering  the  gates  of  Heaven  with 
storms  of  prayer." 

P.  ■ 


66  PRAYER. 


When  we  reflect  that  a  prayer  is  great 
in  proportion  as  its  faith  is  simple,  we 
begin  to  suspect  that  we  have  not  always 
spoken  to  God  with  undoubting  soul.  If 
this  is  not  an  age  of  much  prayer,  it  is 
because  it  is  not  an  age  of  much  faith. 
We  hurry  and  toil  and  fret,  and  are 
overborne  by  our  burdens.  We  think 
we  can  live  by  bread  alone,  and  we  care 
not  to  hear  God's  word.  We  lose  in  those 
qualities  most  needed  for  living  well,  calm- 
ness, depth  and  force.  We  grow  shallow 
in  our  thoughts  about  the  great  truths 
of  life ;  we  grow  distracted  in  our  aims  ; 
our  labour  is  done  half-heartedly ;  there 
is  no  ring  in  our  message  to  our  fellows, 
and  no  victorious  power  within  our  life. 
Cultivate  the  confiding  mood.  Look  out 
of  yourself,  for  your  heart  makes  but  a 
small  world.  Keep  yourself  in  the  love 
of  God  by  building  up  yourself  on  your 
most  holy  faith,  praying  in  the  Holy 
Ghost.  Much  lies  within  your  own 
power.  You  can  make  yourself  trustful 
or  unbelieving,  prayerful        prayerless. 


THE    CONDITIONS    OF    PRAYER.  67 

Your  faith  will  inspire  your  prayer,  and 
your  prayer  will  vitalise  your  faith. 

"  When  I  feel,"  says  Luther,  "  that  I 
am  become  cold  and  indisposed  to  prayer 
by  reason  of  other  business  and  thought, 
I  take  my  psalter  and  run  into  my 
chamber,  or  if  day  and  season  serve, 
into  the  Church  to  the  multitude,  and 
begin  to  repeat  to  myself — just  as 
children  use — the  ten  Commandments, 
the  Creed,  and,  according  as  I  have  time, 
some  sayings  of  Christ,  or  of  Paul,  or 
some  Psalms.  Therefore  it  is  well  to  let 
prayer  be  the  first  employment  in  the 
early  morning  and  the  last  in  the  evening. 
Avoid  diligently  those  false  and  decep- 
tive thoughts  which  say,  '  Wait  a  little, 
and  I  will  pray  an  hour  hence ;  I  must 
perform  this,  or  that.'  For  with  such 
thoughts  a  man  quits  prayer  for  busi- 
ness, which  lays  hold  of  and  entangles 
him,  so  that  he  comes  not  to  pray  the 
whole  day  long." 

The  completeness  and  vigour  of  our  sur- 
render to  God  will  pass  into  our  briefest 

E  2 


68  PRAYER. 


prayer.  Our  whole  self  will  be  in  our  cry. 
What  our  prayers  need  is  intensity  of 
conviction;  steadiness  of  belief  in  God 
our  Father,  not  only  as  the  hearer  of 
prayer,  but  as  the  rewarder  of  it.  "God 
fails  not,"  says  Jeremy  Taylor,  "  to  sow 
blessings  in  the  long  furrows."  Let  us 
go  deep  and  far  into  our  life,  and  our 
prayers  will  never  be  lacking  in  strong 
confidence.  We  shall  remember  we  are 
speaking  to  God,  and  we  shall  speak  to 
Him  with  all  our  heart. 

"  An  arrow,"  says  Bishop  Hall,  "  if  it 
be  drawn  up  but  a  little  way  goes  not 
far,  but  if  it  be  pulled  up  to  the  head 
flies  swiftly  and  pierces  deep.  Thus 
prayer,  if  it  be  only  dribbled  forth  from 
careless  lips,  falls  at  our  feet.  It  is 
not  the  arithmetic  of  our  prayers,  how 
many  they  are ;  nor  the  rhetoric  of 
our  prayers,  how  eloquent  they  be; 
nor  the  geometry  of  our  prayers,  how 
long  they  be;  nor  the  music  of  our 
prayers,  how  sweet  our  voice  may  be; 
nor  the  logic  of  our  prayers,  how  argu- 


THE    CONDITIONS   OF    PRAYEB.  69 

mentative  they  may  be  ;  nor  the  method 
of  our  prayers,  how  orderly  they  may 
be ;  nor  even  the  divinity  of  our  prayers, 
how  good  the  doctrine  may  be — which 
God  cares  for.  He  looks  not  for  the 
horny  knees  which  James  is  said  to  have 
had  through  the  assiduity  of  prayer.  We 
might  be  like  Bartholomew,  who  is  said 
to  have  had  a  hundred  prayers  for  the 
morning  and  as  many  for  the  evening, 
and  all  might  be  of  no  avail.  Fervency 
of  spirit  is  that  which  availeth  much." 

There  are  ocher  conditions  which  can- 
not be  neglected.  Humility  is  an  accom- 
paniment of  all  believing  prayer,  that 
wholesome  self-abasement  which  carries 
with  it  not  merely  a  strong  sense  of  in- 
dividual unworthiness  and  penitence, 
but  a  recognition  of  God's  surpassing 
holiness,  and  hatred  of  all  in  human 
character  that  wastes  and  degrades  life. 
Sincerity  too  is  part  of  the  life  of 
prayer.  We  put  no  more  into  our  words 
than  they  mean,  and  we  put  no  less. 
Truth  in  the  inward  parts  will  show  itself 


70  PRAYER. 

in  truth  in  the  outward  expression.  We 
cannot  pretend  to  pray  and  think  we 
pray  acceptably.  Nowhere  more  than  at 
the  throne  of  grace  ought  a  man  to  be 
his  real  self.  "  Surely  God  will  not  hear 
vanity ;  neither  will  the  Almighty  regard 
it.  If  I  regard  iniquity  in  my  heart  the 
Lord  will  not  hear  me."  We  must  exer- 
cise keen  mental  vigilance  while  we  pray. 
It  is  so  easy  to  become  distracted.  Prayer 
is  so  much  a  customary  act,  a  thing  of 
times  and  seasons,  that  it  can  quickly 
degenerate  into  routine.  Devout  words 
and  phrases  fall  from  our  lips  mechan- 
ically ;  our  petitions  take  set  forms  ;  we 
ask  for  the  same  blessings  day  after  day. 
We  have  no  wide  spiritual  outlook.  Our 
daily  prayer  is  not  much  more  than  "the 
sad  mechanic  exercise "  of  our  lips. 
We  give  little  or  no  room  for  the  play 
of  fresh  faith  and  hope.  We  see  no 
wide  expanse  of  promises.  We  drift 
about  the  gate  of  heaven,  moored  indeed, 
but  by  a  loose  and  lengthening  cable. 
We  are  not  fixed  in  a  fast  anchorage. 


THE    CONDITIONS    OF    PRAYER.  71 

Our  prayer  aims  at  nothing  and  so  gains 
nothing.  Our  lack  of  spiritual  self- 
control  destroys  zest  and  faith  in  acts  of 
fellowship  with  God. 

The  truth  is,  prayer  should  not  be  an 
isolated  periodic  act  of  the  soul,  but  its 
constant  habit  and  way.  Christ  never 
asks  us  to  attempt  the  impossible.  To 
pray  without  ceasing  simply  means  to 
have  God  in  all  our  thoughts,  to 
remember  His  watchful,  fatherly  care  : 
to  believe  that  He  works  in  the  minutest 
events  of  our  daily  life,  as  in  our  great  out- 
standing joys  and  full  hours  of  prosperity. 
To  spiritualise  commonplace  incidents, 
to  see  the  wisdom  of  His  mind  in  the 
directions  He  gives  to  our  careers,  is  to 
feel  that  all  about  our  life  there  is  a 
bracing,  vital  atmosphere  of  holiness. 
A  place  and  a  time  for  shutting  out  the 
world,  and  shutting  ourselves  in  with 
God,  will  constantly  and  increasingly 
summon  us  to  perform  this  necessary 
work,  and  even  compel  us  to  do  it.  Are  we 
not  often  strangers  to  ourselves,  simply 


72  PRAYER. 


because  we  have  made  no  stated  appoint- 
ments with  our  own  minds  and  hearts  ? 

And  if  prayer  is  to  be  effectual,  our 
interviews  with  ourselves  should  be 
characterised  by  simplicity  and  courage 
— simplicity,  that  our  minds  may  not 
throw  a  dust  of  generalities  over  our 
thinking,  in  the  midst  of  which  we  retreat 
from  close  encounters ;  and  courage,  that 
we  may  know  the  worst  about  our- 
selves and  place  our  finger  on  our  weak- 
nesses, and  say,  "  thou  ailest  here,  and 
here."  The  truth  is  always  sufficient 
to  unmask  us,  and  disarm  us,  and  give 
us  humility  and  growth  in  grace,  if  we 
will  but  give  it  a  chance.  Hold  your- 
self, while  you  meditate,  to  simple  ques- 
tions about  yourself.  Do  not  confuse  the 
real  issue  of  your  life  in  the  multitude  or 
obscurity  of  your  own  thoughts.  You 
have  gained  much — more  indeed  than 
you  can  at  once  measure — when  you  have 
learned  to  deal  honestly  with  your  own 
heart,  and  to  hold  it  firmly  to  simple 
facts  which  admit  of  no  argument  and 


THE    CONDITIONS    OF    PRAYEB.  73 

no  evasion.  To  whom  am  I,  as  a  sinner, 
speaking  ?  What  is  the  unaffected  and 
genuine  wish  of  my  soul  ?  What  value 
does  God  place  or  ny  life  ?  How  do  I 
myself  value  it?  Why  am  I  praying 
at  all  i^ 


DIFFICULTIES  OF  PRAYER. 

The  difficulties  of  prayer  are  such  as 
belong  to  the  relationship  which  the 
finite  holds  to  the  infinite.  It  would  be 
surprising  if,  in  his  intercourse  with  God 
questions  did  not  arise  in  man's  mind 
regarding  the  significance  and  value  of 
it.  "  "What  is  man  that  Thou  art  mind- 
ful of  him  ?  "  The  very  circumstance 
that  he  can  speak  to  the  Unseen  suggests 
problems  which  he  cannot  solve.  What 
is  the  Unseen?  Who  is  God?  How 
does  He  act  with  reference  to  the  needs 
of  the  human  spirit  ?  Can  He  answer 
conflicting  prayers  ?  Does  He  so  control 
all  things  that  nature  and  providence 
become  the  servants  of  man  ? 

Notwithstanding  his  difficulties  man 
continues    to    pray.      The    instinct    ol 


THE    DIFFICULTIES    OF    PRAYER.         75 

prayer  cannot  be  repressed  even  by  its 
embarrassments.  When  we  are  most 
perplexed  about  prayer  we  still  believe 
prayer  to  be  a  power.  The  disciples  saw 
the  force  of  prayer  when  they  asked 
their  Master  to  teach  them  to  pray. 
We  may  be  sure  they  were  not  without 
their  misgivings  at  times.  The  world 
and  life  burdened  them,  so  also  did  the 
long  silence  of  God. 

The  more  personal  difficulties  that 
gather  round  the  subject  of  prayer 
spring  from  our  sense  of  doubt,  and 
the  feeling  that  we  are  of  so  little 
account  that  it  is  scarcely  possible  the 
Almighty  can  take  any  interest  in  us. 
This  difficulty  is  very  common  and  will 
reappear  with  every  generation.  But  it 
may  be  said  in  answer  to  it,  that  it  is  our 
own  littleness  that  makes  us  pray.  If 
we  knew  more,  we  should  seek  less.  It 
is  because  we  are  ignorant  that  we  want 
to  know.  It  is  because  we  are  poor  and 
needy  that  we  are  sure  the  Lord  thinketh 
upon  us. 


76  PRAYER. 


Some  one  has  said  that  the  theology  of 
the  Old  Testament  lies  in  its  personal 
pronouns.  When  we  lose  the  recognition 
of  our  own  individual  value,  we  lose  the 
sense  of  our  kinship  with  God.  A  child 
is  unnatural  who  never  asks  his  father 
for  anything.  The  father  is  unnatural 
who  never  attends  to  his  child.  If 
man's  prayer  is  the  irrepressible  utter- 
ance of  his  soul,  has  God  no  heart  to 
listen  to  it  ?  Where  should  the  physician 
be  but  by  the  bedside  of  the  weak? 
Where  should  the  lifeboat  be  but  where 
men  are  struggling  for  safety  ?  Where 
should  the  shepherd  be  but  in  the 
dangerous  place  where  the  lost  lamb  is  ? 
Where  should  God  be  but  beside  His 
own  in  the  hour  of  danger  ? 

Were  He  an  impassive  king,  apathetic 
and  remote,  you  might  well  doubt  both 
the  reality  of  His  care  for  you  and  the 
efficacy  of  your  own  prayer;  but  that 
is  not  your  conception  of  God,  nor  is  it 
the  highest  conception.  God  is  your 
Father,  and  if  you  believe  this  you  will 


THE    DIFFICULTIES   OF   PRAYER.         77 

understand  that  the  relationship  between 
Him  and  you  makes  it  impossible  that 
He  should  turn  your  prayer  from  Him- 
self or  His  mercy  from  you.  Whether 
He  answers  your  prayer  or  not,  should 
not,  after  all,  be  your  main  anxiety,  but 
whether  you  are  keeping  firmly  and 
clearly  in  your  mind  the  truth  that  He 
loves  you  as  much  as  if  there  were  no 
others  in  His  world  to  love.  You  can- 
not exaggerate  that  love.  It  is  special, 
immediate,  unsleeping,  strong.  If  He 
gave  His  best  gift  for  your  personal 
salvation,  He  will  with  that  gift  also 
freely  give  you  all  things.  Trust  His 
knowledge :  you  will  get  from  Him  not 
what  you  want  but  what  you  need.  You 
can  never  see  through  what  divine 
mysteries  of  refusal  and  compensation 
and  pain  the  great  Father  of  us  all  may 
be  carrying  out  His  vast  plan  :  but  the 
words  "  God  is  love  "  ought  to  contain 
to  every  doubting  soul  the  solution  of 
all  hard  questions. 

The  difficulty  most  prominent  In  our 


78  PRAYER. 


time  is  that  which  is  founded  on  the 
scientific  conception  of  law.  We  can 
scarcely  estimate  the  injurious  influence 
of  this  conception.  It  has  made  people 
narrow  the  range  of  prayer.  It  has 
made  them  hesitate  to  pray.  It  has 
restrained  their  liberty  in  prayer.  It 
has  beclouded  their  vision  of  God.  It 
has  materialised  their  faith  and  spiritual 
outlook.  "  Nature,"  it  is  said,  "  is  uni- 
form in  its  working.  Everything  in  the 
universe  is  arranged  in  accordance  with 
fixed,  unvarying  laws.  Effect  follows 
cause  in  regular,  unbroken  order.  That 
order  cannot  be  violated  at  the  wish  of 
man.  To  suppose  that  it  can,  is  to  say 
that  caprice  rules  all  things.  It  is  absurd 
to  think  that  God  will  alter  the  con- 
stitution of  the  universe  at  the  request 
of  any  man  or  woman.  The  sun  rises 
and  sets,  the  tides  ebb  and  flow,  dis- 
ease results  invariably  from  certain 
specific  physical  conditions,  the  seasons 
come  in  unchanging  order,  the  great 
machine  of  the  universe  moves  on  in 


THE    DIFFICULTIES    OF   PRAYER.  79 

steady,  undeviating  course,  and  no  human 
power  can  avail  to  change  it.  Prayer 
therefore  is  of  no  value  beyond  the 
result  which  it  produces  in  the  thought 
and  feeling  of  him  who  prays."  This  is 
an  argument  which  will  have  no  weight 
with  many  people.  Their  faith  is  so 
massive  and  so  simple  that  they  will 
never  limit  their  requests.  They  are 
quite  sure  that  to  him  that  believeth  all 
things  are  possible.  But  the  argument 
disturbs  the  peace  of  other  minds.  And 
yet,  is  it  so  very  hurtful  as  it  looks  ? 
Does  it  leave  no  room  for  prayer  ?  Does 
it  even  limit  the  scope  of  our  prayer  ? 

It  is  to  beg  the  question  to  say  that 
we  know  that  God  governs  this  world  by 
fixed  laws.  That  is  just  the  truth  om- 
science  is  endeavouring  to  discover,  and 
it  is  very  far  from  having  thoroughly 
explored  the  universe.  What  we  have 
found  out  is  that  there  is  a  regular 
recurrence  of  cause  and  effect  in  the 
material  phenomena  of  the  world;  but 
it  cannot  be  said  that  in  the  higher  life 


80  PRiYER. 

of  mind  and  feeling  there  is  the  same 
rigid  procedure  and  manifestation  of  law. 
What  is  law  ?     It  is  not,  as  some  almost 
seem  to  imagine,  very  much  like  a  cast- 
iron     rod     running     straight     through 
material  and  moral  things  and  holding 
them    together    in    definite    and  fixed 
places  ;  something  that  you  cannot  bend 
or  break  or  in  the  least  degree  alter.     A 
law  is  the  expression  of  the  thought  and 
will   of  God.      It  is  only  a  particular 
method  of  working,  not  a  power.     Our 
modern  scientific  belief  in  the  unity  of 
nature   and   the   reign   of   law  is   only 
another  way  of  stating  the  truth  that 
we   recognise  that  this  world  is  main- 
tained and  controlled,  as  it  was  created, 
by  a  Being  who    is  all-powerful    and 
everywhere  present.     In  the  last  resort 
science  is  only  possible  on  the  assump- 
tion that  God  is  constantly  in  touch  with 
Nature ;  and   although,  as   Jowett   once 
said,   "  we   cannot  see  where  the  hand 
or  finger  may  be  inserted  as  in  a  cracked 
jar,"  yet  our  inability  to  perceive  how 


THE    DIFFICULTIES    OF    PRAYER.         81 


God  CBD  and  does  act,  does  not  warrant 
us  in  believing  that  He  does  not  act. 

As  a  matter  of  experience,  nothing  is 
so  variable  as  natural  law.  No  scientific 
man  would  sign  his  name  to  a  weather 
forecast  and  affirm  that  it  would  be 
absolutely  verified  ere  the  day  was  done. 
He  can  only  conjecture  and  state  what 
is  probable.  We  do  not  know  all  about 
God's  laws  and  His  processes  of  work- 
ing, and  we  may  be  silent  until  we  know. 
There  is  still  large  room  for  faith.  We 
can,  and  do,  change  these  laws  as  we 
wish.  We  use  them  for  our  good.  Our 
commerce,  our  industry,  our  civilisa- 
tion, are  made  to  depend  on  the  service 
which  these  laws  render  to  us.  W^e 
touch  the  clouds  and  bring  the  lightning 
down  and  ''put  a  girdle  round  about 
the  earth  in  forty  minutes."  We  make 
the  laws  of  heat  and  light  and  electric 
force  obey  us  and  do  our  will.  We 
combine  and  manipulate  and  so  direct 
these  laws  that  they  may  minister  to  our 
happiness  and  comfort.     We  can  divert 

p.  F 


82  PRAYER. 

a  river  from  its  course  and  cause  a 
barren  wilderness  to  rejoice  and  blossom 
as  the  rose.  We  can  desolate  a  fertile 
land  and  alter  a  thousand  landscapes. 
We  can,  by  planting  forests,  bring  down 
clouds  and  rain,  and  so  change  a  climate. 
Human  achievements  now  have  almost 
a  supernatural  look. 

If  we  can  do  so  much,  can  God  do  less 
or  more  ?  Is  He  the  prisoner  of  His 
own  laws,  held  fast  by  the  forces  He 
has  made  ?  Is  the  world  a  vast  machine 
which  its  Maker  cannot  control  ?  Science 
cannot  explain  what  force  is,  nor  how 
its  changes  of  form  are  brought  about, 
and  is  there  any  reason  against  our 
supposing  that  God  may  employ  the 
forces  of  Nature  to  meet  the  changing 
requirements  of  His  moral  government  ? 
May  the  divine  mind  not  have  other 
purposes  to  fulfil  than  those  that  are 
expressed  in  the  works  we  see  ?  May 
there  not  be  laws  higher  than  the  laws 
which  we  have  discovered,  and  may  not 
the  will  of  God,  which  is   before  and 


THE    DIFFICULTIES    OF    PRAYER.         83 

beyond  all  things,  make  these,  by  pro- 
cesses we  cannot  imagine,  serve  the 
great  ends  of  His  providence  ?  He  is  a 
living  God  and  Nature  is  ever  evolving, 
and  we  may  surely  believe  that  His 
relation  to  the  thing  He  has  made  is 
close  and  operative  and  constant.  For 
aught  that  we  know  to  the  contrary  God 
may  employ  the  forces  of  Nature  to  carry 
forward  and  complete  the  purposes  He 
has  in  view  in  His  moral  government 
of  His  children.  We  know  so  little  of 
them  that  we  dare  not  say  He  does  not 
so  use  them,  and  we  are  so  sure  of  His 
goodness  and  power  that  we  shall  hesitate 
to  disbelieve  that  He  can  do  all  things. 

"  Keligious  people,"  says  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge,  "  seem  to  be  losing  some  of  their 
faith  in  prayer :  they  think  it  scientific 
not  to  pray  in  the  sense  of  simple 
petition.  They  may  be  right :  it  may 
be  the  highest  attitude  never  to  ask  for 
anything  specific,  only  for  acquiescence. 
If  saints  feel  it  so  they  are  doubtless 
right,  but  so  far  as  ordinary  science  has 

F  2 


84  PRATER. 

anything  to  say  to  the  contrary  a  more 
childlike  attitude  might  turn  out  truer, 
more  in  accordance  with  the  total  scheme. 
Prayer  for  a  fancied  good  that  might 
really  be  an  injury  would  be  foolish; 
prayer  for  breach  of  law  would  be  not 
foolish  only  but  profane:  but  who  are 
we  to  dogmatise  too  positively  concerning 
law?  A  martyr  may  have  prayed  that 
he  should  not  feel  the  fire.  Can  it  be 
doubted  that,  whether  through  what  we 
call  hypnotic  suggestion  or  by  some 
other  name,  the  granting  of  it  was  at 
least  possible  ?  Prayer,  we  have  been 
told,  is  a  mighty  engine  of  achievement, 
but  we  have  ceased  to  believe  it.  Why 
should  we  be  so  incredulous  ?  Even  in 
medicine,  for  instance,  it  is  not  really 
absurd  to  suggest  that  drugs  and  no 
prayer  may  be  almost  as  foolish  as  prayer 
and  no  drugs.  The  whole  truth  may  be 
completer  and  saner  than  the  sectaries 
dream :  more  things  may  be 

'•  Wrought  by  prayer 
Iliaii  this  world  dreams  of.*' 


THE    DIFFICULTIES   OF   PRAYER.         85 

On  any  hypothesis  it  must  be  to  the 
Lord  that  we  pray — to  the  highest  we 
know  or  can  conceive  ;  but  the  answer 
shall  come  in  ways  we  do  not  know,  and 
there  must  always  be  a  far  higher  than 
ever  we  can  conceive."* 

It  is  inspiriting  to  hear  from  this 
distinguished  man  of  science  the 
assurance  that  we  may  still  continue 
to  pray,  notwithstanding  all  we  have 
learned  about  the  laws  of  Nature.  The 
Law-giver  must  needs  be  greater  than 
His  laws,  and  in  this  case  He  is  not  only 
the  hearer  of  prayer  but  our  Father  in 
heaven ;  and  our  prayer  is  intended  as 
much  to  enable  us  to  act  with  Him  in 
our  life,  as  to  make  us  sure  that  He 
listens. 

The  difficulty  which  gathers  round 
this  idea  of  fixed  natural  law  was  probably 
accentuated  by  the  well-known  suggestion 
which  the  late  Professor  Tyndall  made  in 
connection  with  the  value  of  prayer.  He 
proposed  that    the    efficacy    of    prayer 

*  Hibhert  Journal^  January,  190S. 


86  PKAYER. 


should  be  scientifically  tested  in  a 
hospital.  The  test  was  to  take  this 
form.  Two  wards  were  to  be  chosen  and 
placed  under  the  care  of  able  and  known 
physicians.  The  patients  in  these  wards 
were  to  be  sufferers  from  those  diseases 
which  are  most  thoroughly  understood, 
and  the  mortality  rates  of  which  are  best 
ascertained  :  the  treatment  in  both  wards 
was  to  be  precisely  the  same,  and  to 
continue  so  during  a  period  of  not  less 
than  three  to  five  years.  Por  the  inmates 
of  one  ward  prayers  were  to  be  offered, 
for  those  of  the  other  no  prayers  were 
to  be  offered,  and  the  rate  of  mortality 
in  both  was  to  be  compared  at  the  close 
of  the  fixed  period.  This  scientific 
experiment,  it  was  declared,  would  con- 
clusively prove  whether  prayer  was  of 
use  or  not.  The  challenge  was  thought 
by  many  to  be  a  fair  one,  and  the  experi- 
ment was  regarded  as  offering  a  final 
settlement  of  much  of  the  difficulty 
about  prayer. 
And  in  some  form,  more  or  less  like 


THE    DIFFICULTIES    OP    PRAYER.         87 

this,  it  is  thought  by  many  that  the  true 
test  of  the  utiHty  of  prayer  must  lie. 
To  begin  with,  is  such  an  experiment 
possible  ?  Is  it  within  the  power  of  the 
most  competent  medical  men  to  make 
such  a  diagnosis  of  the  condition  of 
certain  sufferers  as  to  say  absolutely 
that  two  sets  of  patients  in  a  hospital 
have  precisely  the  same  chances  of 
recovery  or  death  ?  Would  it  even  be 
possible  to  select  out  of  a  great  multi- 
tude of  people  a  number  of  sufferers 
whose  environment,  career,  constitutional 
peculiarities,  hereditary  tendencies,  moral 
conduct,  physical  sensitiveness,  would  in 
the  case  of  each  be  exactly  similar  ? 
Could  absolute  accuracy  with  respect  to 
atmosphere,  drugs,  food,  nursing,  rest, 
sleep,  be  secured  during  the  whole  pro- 
cess of  such  an  experiment?  It  is 
beyond  the  resources  of  the  best  organised 
hospital. 

And  there  is  another  fact  to  be  con- 
sidered. 

How  would  it  be  possible  to  prevent 


88  PRAYER. 


prayer  being  offered  for  all  these 
patients  ?  Can  we  think  of  any  sincere 
Christian  who  was  made  aware  of  this 
proposed  experiment  refusing  to  make 
intercession  for  a  certain  number  of  these 
sufferers,  but  not  for  others?  Would 
this  not  be  treacherous  to  his  own  feeling 
of  brotherly  love,  not  to  say  anything  of 
his  loyalty  to  God?  How  could  any 
earnest-minded  man  submit  to  have  his 
faith  so  basely  degraded,  or  his  prayers 
forbidden  ? 

Further,  these  patients  would  have  to 
be  told  of  the  experiment  and  the  reason 
for  it.  Think  of  the  effect  of  the 
announcement  made  to  one  of  these 
patients  :  "  For  three  years  you  are  not 
to  pray  for  yourself,  nor  any  of  your 
fellow  sufferers  in  this  ward,  and  you 
are  not  to  ask  anyone  to  pray  for  you." 
If  there  was  any  devout  heart  in  that 
unprayed-for  ward,  one  earnest  word  of 
his  to  God  would  spoil  the  whole  plan. 
And  knowing  that  he  was  not  prayed 
for,  the  very  fact  that  another  ward  was 


THE    DIFFICULTIES    OF    PRAYER.  89 

of  set  purpose  within  the  scope  of  some 
people's  prayers  would  revive  his  own 
longing,  and  he  would  be  unable  to  stifle 
his  own  desire  for  health  and  life. 

The  proposal  from  first  to  last  was 
sbsurd,  and  it  is  surprising  that  it 
should  ever  have  been  entertained.  It 
showed  not  merely  a  wrong  notion  of 
prayer,  but  also  of  God,  and  of  the  life 
of  faith  in  the  heart  of  man.  It  was 
the  old  temptation.  Make  these  stones 
bread.  It  implied  that  people  would 
only  believe  God  when  He  did  what 
they  insisted  He  should  do  :  that  they 
had  no  faith  in  prayer  or  God  now,  but 
were  quite  willing  to  leave  it  an  open 
question  for  five  years  at  the  most.  Its 
assumption  that  the  power  and  truth  of 
God  could  be  proved  by  experiment,  and 
that  prayer  could  be  made  a  subject  of 
materialistic  law,  only  showed  how  com- 
pletely the  whole  problem  had  been 
misunderstood,  and  what  a  defective 
idea  its  supporters  had  of  spiritual  life, 
and  the  relationship  berween  a  rrustful 


90  PRAYER. 

soul  and  God.  Yet  the  influence  of 
this  suggestion  went  very  far  at  the  time 
that  it  was  made,  and  its  effect  can  be 
seen  in  the  suspicion  that  is  in  many 
people's  minds  still,  that  we  can  only 
estimate  the  efficacy  of  prayer  by  its 
visible  and  material  results. 

The  mere  fact  that  one  has  difficulties 
with  respect  to  prayer  in  no  way  invali- 
dates the  truthfulness  or  efficacy  of 
prayer.  One  can  eiisily  raise  objections 
against  prayer,  but  be  quite  unable  to 
explain  why  that  mother  asks  so  eagerly 
that  God  would  save  her  fever- stricken 
child.  It  is  no  soothing  knowledge  to 
her  to  inform  her  that  the  life  of  her 
little  one  depends  on  the  action  of  fixed 
laws,  when  she  knows  that  her  child's 
recovery  is  within  the  power  of  God,  and 
it  is  worth  her  while  to  pray.  Explain 
her  agony  and  you  will  find  out  why  she 
prays.  There  is  not  much  indeed  in  our 
knowledge  and  experience,  that  we  can- 
not at  some  time  or  other  call  in  question. 
And  so  far  as  the  utility  of  prayer  is 


THE    DIFFICULTIES    OF    PRAYER.  91 

concerned  the  main  objections  to  it  have 
arisen  from  an  inadequate  apprehension 
of  its  nature  and  an  incomplete  induction 
of  facts. 

That  there  are  mysteries  in  prayer  is 
not  an  exceptional  thing.  All  life  is  a 
mystery.  The  ways  of  the  human  soul 
are  a  mystery.  Turn  where  we  will  we 
find  the  universe  more  baffling  than  it 
looks.     For 

*'  All  experience  is  an  arch  wlierethro' 
Gleams  that  untravelled  world,  whose  margin 

fades 
For  ever  and  for  ever  when  I  move." 

Our  knowledge  has  its  boundaries,  our 
ignorance  has  none.  What  we  know  of 
any  subject  may  be  said  to  be  very  much 
less  than  what  we  do  not  know.  Our 
minds  do  not  carry  us  far  through  this 
universe.  There  are  roads  yet  unmade 
and  untrodden.  The  horizon  is  still  as 
distant  as  before. 

To  say  that  prayer  is  useless  because 
it  seems  to  make  no  difference  in  our 
life — it   does   not    bring   us  health,   or 


92  ^  PEAYER. 


prosperity,  when  we  ask  for  these,  and 
they  who  never  ask  at  all  get  on  as  well 
without  praying  as  we  do  who  pray — is  a 
short  and  unsatisfactory  way  of  solving 
the  problem  of  prayer.  No  person,  as  we 
have  seen,  who  knows  God  and  seeks 
agreement  with  God's  will,  will  ever 
make  prayer  a  test  by  which  personal 
success  and  comfort  are  to  be  measured. 
Besides,  there  may  be  results  which  we 
cannot  see,  and  in  saying  that  we  have 
prayed  and  failed,  we  may  be  confessing 
that  we  have  gone  through  a  form  that 
had  neither  spiritual  faith  nor  hope  in 
the  heart  of  it.  And  farther,  while  you 
cannc  t  prove  the  worth  or  worthlessness 
of  prayer  by  statistics,  it  remains  true 
that  the  Christian  nations  are  the  great 
nations,  and  the  people  who  live  in  com- 
munion with  Christ  and  pray  in  His 
name  are  the  people  who  have  done 
most  for  the  world.  The  fact  that 
Christianity  has  infused  a  new  life  into 
the  world  is  just  another  way  of  saying 
that  prayer  has  changed  and  elevated 


THE    DIFFICULTIES    OP   PRAYER.         93 

character,  and  made  men  and  women  do 
things  in  the  strength  of  God  they  could 
never  have  done  without  it. 

The  world  is  being  blessed  every  day 
in  answer  to  human  prayers.  These 
prayers  are  like  the  rain-clouds  lying 
across  the  sky,  that  we  cannot  well  see 
until  the  rain  falls.  There  is  abundant 
moisture  in  that  great  cloudland  above 
us,  but  it  is  not  visible  until  condensed. 
The  earnest,  trustful  supplications  of  the 
million  hearts  all  over  the  world  that 
love  the  Father  and  continually  call 
upon  Him,  break  into  showers  of  bless- 
ing now,  to-morrow,  here,  there,  we 
know  not  where  or  when.  We  toil  and 
suffer,  we  disbelieve  and  hope ;  but  all  the 
while,  though  we  may  not  be  conscious 
of  it,  our  lives  are  helped  in  answer  to 
the  pleadings  of  God's  praying  folk,  and 
a  blessing  we  never  asked  or  sought 
has  come. 

No  true  and  honest  prayer  is  ever  lost. 
For  the  wise  Father  of  us  all  has  woven 
natural  forces  and  human  prayers  into 


94  PRAYER. 


the  long  web  of  His  purpose  so  skilfully, 
and  makes  the  outcome  of  blessing  so 
habitual,  that  we  forget  to  be  grateful. 
The  response  comes  like  the  dawn  or 
the  dew.  We  are  not  startled  by  sudden 
displays  of  the  work  He  is  doing  for  us ; 
but  only  guarded,  fed,  guided,  sheltered, 
comforted  by  means  of  a  far-reaching, 
gracious  plan,  a  thousand  times  more 
wonderful  than  any  mere  miracle.  Yet 
we  so  often  forget  to  pray  and  so  seldoitt 
think  of  the  Father  1 


V. 

THE    GAIN  OF   PRAYER. 

It  must  always  be  impossible  to  re- 
count the  blessings  that  are  derived 
from  private  or  public  prayer.  For 
clearly  enough  the  only  real  test  of  the 
worth  of  prayer  is  that  which  tests  the 
character  of  our  prayers  themselves — 
their  sincerity,  hopefulness,  faith,  or 
their  lack  of  these  elements.  The  mood 
makes  the  suppliant.  If  the  essential 
to  all  true  prayer  be  our  unconditional 
surrender  to  the  Father's  will,  then  the 
richest  gain  we  reap  from  prayer  will 
be  a  closer  agreement  with  the  great 
loving  heart  that  wants  to  hear  us  speak. 
This  is  the  consummation  of  the  earnest 
life.  We  pray  to  be,  not  to  get.  Your 
prayer  has  its  richest,  satisfaction  in 
bringing  you  close  to  (iod.      it  is  noc  tio 


96  PRAYER. 


much  gifts  you  seek,  as  Him.  You 
pray  for  very  desirable  things,  for 
money,  success,  health,  ease,  and  there 
is  scarcely  a  supplication  you  make  that 
has  not  its  personal  ambition,  but  the 
moment  these  wants  become  the  domi- 
nant forces  in  your  prayer,  His  will 
fades  from  your  desire,  and  you  must 
expect  to  be  sent  empty  away. 

There  is  another  common  mistake. 
Most  of  us  have  a  very  comfortable  but  not 
very  well  sustained  idea  that  our  prayers 
go  straight  to  God,  and  that  with  respect 
to  the  subject  of  our  prayer  He  takes 
into  consideration  nothing  beyond  our 
own  desires  and  petitions.  We  seldom 
give  room  to  the  thought  that  some- 
thing in  ourselves  may  be  actually 
operating  against  the  virtue  of  our  own 
requests.  We  may  be  hindering  the  ful- 
filment of  our  own  prayers.  Augustine's 
example  has  been  repeated  frequently 
in  prayer.  "  Lord,  convert  me,  but 
not  yet.**  It  was  said  of  some  in  the 
later  day?  of  the  Old  Testament  that 


THE    GAIN    OF    PRAYER.  97 

**  they  feared  the  Lord,  but  served 
other  gods."  We  may  join  in  asking 
for  spiritual  revival  and  enlightenment 
in  the  Church,  for  fuller  consecration  of 
ourselves  to  Christian  duty  among  the 
children,  in  our  own  homes,  in  our 
congregation,  and  all  the  while  may 
allow  to  lie  within  us  a  reluctance  which 
says,  "  Not  yet :  to  grant  this  petition 
means  self-denial,  and  I  am  not  pre- 
pared for  it ;  it  means  earnest  effort  to 
equip  ourselves  for  harder  service  ;  it 
means  a  strenuous  watchful  culture  of  the 
soul,  and  I  prefer  to  keep  on  at  the  present 
rate,  though  I  am  far  from  satisfied  with 
it."  Perhaps  we  should  often  be  sur- 
prised and  pained  if  God  took  us  always 
at  our  word,  and  answered  our  prayers 
in  the  exactness  of  their  own  terms. 

' '  We,  ignorant  of  ourselves, 
Beg  often  our  own  harms,  which  the  wise  powers 
Deny  us  for  our  good  ;  so  find  we  profit 
By  losing  of  our  prayers." 

Our  weaknesses  and  selfishness,  our 
negligences   and   our    half-heartedness, 
P.  o 


98  PRAYER, 


have  a  voice  as  truly  as  have  our 
serious  longings,  and  God  hears  these 
and  sometimes  shows  us  how  they 
contradict  our  spoken  prayers.  We 
pray  our  doubts  as  much  as  our 
beliefs. 

But  are  not  some  prayers  unheard? 
No,  but  there  are  some  that  are  un- 
answered. Why  should  we  faint  and 
doubt  because  it  is  so  ?  "  No  "  is  as 
much  an  answer  as  "  Yes."  There  are 
occasions  in  our  life  when  God's  best  gift 
to  us  is  His  silence.  The  only  practical 
difficulty  is  to  know  how  to  interpret  a 
refusal.  You  do  not  give  your  watch  to 
your  child  simply  because  he  cries  for  it, 
and  your  refusal  is  not  prompted  by  the 
feeling  that  your  child  is  less  precious  to 
you  than  your  watch,  but  because  he  is 
not  capable  of  enjoying  its  use.  When 
he  is  ready  to  know  its  purpose,  his 
request  will  have  a  meaning.  The  virtue 
of  any  prayer  is  seen  in  the  patience 
that  underlies  it,  and  that  intelligent 
hopefulness  that  through  the  long  and 


THE    GAIN    OF   PRATER.  99 

often  silent  years   is   sure   that  God's 
wisdom  is  unerring. 

Probably,  however,  the  objection  to 
the  advantage  of  prayer  which  is  most 
felt  is  one  which  is  so  individual  that  it 
cannot  be  met  in  any  uniform  way.  It 
is  that  which  is  grounded  on  the  circum- 
stance that  many  prayers  earnestly 
offered  never  seem  to  be  answered. 
A  mother  in  the  quiet  night  cries  to  God 
to  spare  her  sick  child's  life,  and  in  the 
morning  she  is  looking  through  her 
tears  on  her  little  sweet  treasure,  beautiful 
in  death.  A  father  yearning  for  his  long 
absent  son  calls  anxiously  to  God  to  save 
him,  but  dies  and  neither  sees  him  nor 
has  any  knowledge  of  the  fruit  of  all  his 
praying.  A  ship  founders,  and  all  on 
board  perish,  though  they  call  to  Heaven 
with  a  more  piercing  wail  than  the  wind 
makes  in  the  rigging  of  their  doomed 
vessel.  When  the  story  is  told  us  the 
question  at  once  arises  :  Is  there  a  God 
who  sees,  and  hears,  and  rules  ?  Has  He 
any  pity?      Does    His  pity  grow  to  a 

a  2 


100  PBAYER. 


sovereign  power  in  the  desperate  moments 
of  human  need?  Such  cases  as  these 
are  among  the  oppressive  facts  of  human 
history,  and  are  made  all  the  more  per- 
plexing to  us  by  our  ignorance  both  of 
the  nature  and  the  extent  of  God's 
designs.  If  we  only  knew  God's  will,  and 
the  methods  by  which  He  carries  it  out, 
and  the  range  it  covers,  "  the  burden  of 
the  mystery  "  would  be  less  severe  upon 
our  spirits.  We  can  but  cling  in  a  dilBQ- 
culty  like  this  to  the  principle  on  which 
we  all  more  or  less  consciously  act,  that 
if  all  our  prayers  were  answered  precisely 
as  we  wished,  this  world  would  not  be  a 
place  of  moral  discipline,  but  merely  a 
playground  for  the  ruinous  game  of  self- 
satisfaction.  People  would  pray,  not 
because  they  wished  to  be  close  to 
God's  heart,  but  because  they  wished 
an  easy  comfort. 

God  will  not  grant  us  everything  we 
ask,  but  all  the  same  in  nothing  are  we 
to  be  anxious,  but  in  everything  by  prayer 
and  supplication  with  thanksgiving  we  are 


THE    GAIN    OF    PRAYER.  101 

to  let  our  requests  be  made  known  unto 
God.  He  has  not  put  His  omnipotence 
into  the  hands  of  every  man  who  prays 
to  Him.  The  Bible  is  full  of  promises, 
but  it  tells  us  of  many  unanswered 
prayers.  To  listen  to  a  promise  is  one 
thing ;  to  see  how  it  is  to  be  fulfilled  is 
another.  The  one  act  requires  faith,  the 
other  patience ;  and  underneath  and 
through  our  prayer  should  be  as  much 
patience  as  faith.  The  answer  to  your 
prayer  may  come  as  certainly  through 
failure  as  through  success,  and  bad  fortune 
may  be  as  real  a  blessing  to  you  as  good 
fortune.  David  fasted  and  prayed,  but 
his  little  child  died.  Paul  wished  freedom 
from  his  thorn  in  the  flesh,  and  eagerly 
asked  God  to  remove  it,  but  it  was  not 
removed.  Our  Lord  Himself  prayed  in 
Gethsemane  that  the  cup  of  suffering 
might  be  taken  from  Him  undrained,  but 
it  was  not;  He  had  to  drink  it  to  the 
dregs.  Our  prayer  has  reached  its  fullest 
strength  when  we  prefer  the  Father's  will 
to  the  most  imperious  demand  of  our 


102  PRAYER. 

wild  desires.  Parents  seek  that  their 
children  should  have  those  things  that 
build  up  their  characters  in  goodness, 
and  purity,  and  honourable  service. 
They  like  to  be  asked  to  give  them  these. 
Our  homes  are  ruled  and  administered 
on  the  principle  that  their  right  govern- 
ment has  a  twofold  end,  one  which  is 
seen  and  the  other  which  is  not  seen. 
One  recognises  present  and  immediate 
gratification,  the  other  a  future  and 
permanent  good.  And  so  we  give  and 
refuse  in  accordance  with  that  principle. 
If  a  human  analogy  can  help  us  to 
explain  the  divine  method  we  may 
reverently  say  that  in  some  such  way  as 
this  does  God  deal  with  us  when  we  pray. 
Our  little  children  in  their  ignorance 
make  many  a  foolish  request,  but  we  do 
not  insist  they  shall  ask  for  nothing 
again.  We  simply  by  our  refusal  train 
them  to  ask  better,  and  to  confide  in  a 
larger  wisdom  than  their  own.  We 
sometimes  ask  God  to  deliver  us  from 
things  that  do  not  necessarily  injure  the 


THE   GAIN    OP   PRATER.  103 

soul,  however  unpleasant  and  dangerous 
they  look,  such  as  illness,  poverty,  bad 
business,  loss,  and  death.  And  God  does 
not  hear  our  prayer.  It  takes  us  long  to 
see  that  our  prayer  is  best  answered,  not 
by  what  it  does  for  us  externally,  but  by 
what  it  effects  in  our  mind  and  heart,  in 
the  way  we  look  at  life,  and  the  way  we 
trust  God.  We  can  never  fail,  however, 
to  have  the  answer  to  our  prayer  when 
we  ask  to  be  delivered  from  sin,  and 
callousness  of  spirit,  and  pride,  and  un- 
belief, for  these  touch  us  in  our  divinest 
part  and  imperil  the  soul's  beauty  and 
security.  God  loves  our  good  more  than 
our  happiness,  and  works  more  for  the 
sake  of  securing  in  us  a  childlike  disposi- 
tion than  comfortable  circumstances. 
Some  of  us  may  have  said  with  Jean 
Ingelow :  "  I  have  lived  to  thank  God 
that  all  my  prayers  have  not  been 
answered." 

The  more  we  wait  on  Him  and  persuade 
ourselves  of  His  unerring  goodness  the 
more  clearly  will  it  appear  to  us  that  He 


104  PRAYER. 


denies  us  nothing  but  with  the  view  of 
giving  us  something  better.  We  cannot 
say  why  in  this  particular  instance  and 
in  that  He  has  not  been  pleased  to  answer 
our  earnest  believing  prayer,  but  there 
is  a  significance  in  His  refusal  which,  at 
least,  must  be  concerned  with  the  spiritual 
well-being  of  the  heart  that  prayed. 
Much  goes  to  the  education  of  the 
children  who  trust  Him,  and  not  all  of 
them  are  apt  disciples  in  His  school. 
As  saintly  Thomas  Erskine  says,  "if  it 
has  taken  God  untold  ages  to  make  a 
piece  of  old  red  sandstone,  how  long  will 
it  take  Him  to  perfect  a  human  soul." 
With  every  true  prayer  God  has  more  to 
do  than  the  person  who  prays,  and  there- 
fore every  true  prayer  carries  part  of  its 
own  answer.  "  God,"  as  the  old  mystics 
loved  to  say,  "is  an  unutterable  sigh  in 
the  innermost  depth  of  the  soul."  What 
God  prompts  within  us  He  knows  how  to 
meet.  We  learn  slowly  to  put  away 
childish  things  from  our  mind  when  we 
pray,  and  our  main  desire  is  that  He 


THE    GAIN    OP    PRAYER.  105 

will,  in  ways  that  He  Himself  deems 
best,  give  us  that  which  will  more  deeply 
and  visibly  impress  on  our  character  the 
strength  and  calm  of  Christ,  and  arm  us 
for  the  battle  and  make  us  more  than 
conquerors  in  it. 

Besides,  we  do  not  always  think  when 
we  pray  of  the  largeness  of  God's  moral 
kingdom  and  the  variety  and  complicated 
nature  of  the  purposes  that  underlie 
His  education  of  the  human  race.  The 
answer  to  our  prayer  may  lie  beyond  the 
sphere  of  time,  and  may  be  concerned 
as  vitally  with  others'  good  as  with  our 
own.  I  cannot  prescribe  the  direction 
in  which  God's  response  to  my  entreaty 
is  to  come,  and  yet  remain  faithfully 
acquiescent  in  His  will.  What  I  ask  for 
myself  may  be  given  in  the  case  of 
an(  ther  whose  necessity  is  greater  than 
mine,  and  whose  spirit,  for  aught  I  know, 
needs  larger  discipline  than  mine.  Who 
made  us  to  differ  but  the  God  who  will 
not  fail  to  meet  our  different  wants,  and 
so  work  out  His  design  in  the  ultimate 


106  PRAYER. 

good  of  all  the  earth?  If  my  neighbour's 
prayer  seems  to  contradict  my  prayer, 
he  and  I,  if  we  sincerely  love  God,  will 
willingly  rest  in  His  unseen  goodness, 
though  one  request  is  denied  while  the 
other  is  granted.  It  is  those  who  think 
greatly  about  God  who  pray  greatly, 
quite  sure  that  never  has  God  forgotten 
to  love,  and  He  is  too  wise  not  to  know. 
For  your  faith  in  God,  more  especially  in 
your  hours  of  prayer,  is  not  something 
for  the  daylight,  when  the  weather  is 
sunny  and  clear,  but  for  the  dismal 
night,  when  the  fogs  are  out,  and  the 
rain  drips  heavily,  and  you  cannot  see 
and  have  to  pause  to  make  sure  of  your 
way.  That  soul  has  risen  to  a  great 
height  of  confidence  who  through  all  the 
years  never  doubts  God's  power  and 
knowledge  and  love,  and  who  recognises 
the  difference  between  believing  there 
is  no  solution  of  his  difficulties  and 
believing  that  in  the  mind  of  God  there 
is  a  thought  for  each  child  of  His,  and  a 
purpose,  and  a  blessedness. 


THE   GAIN   OF   PRAYER.  107 

"  The  man  who  learns  what  life  can  teach 
Shall  see  beyond  his  soul  at  last, 
Shall  mix  with  all  that  is,  and  reach 
A  secret  hidden  from  the  past. 

••  For  more  than  all  we  ask  we  find, 

And  more  than  triumph  ends  our  strife ; 
Seek  on,  for  there  are  worlds  behind, 
Seek  on,  and  reach  the  source  of  life. 

••  At  one  with  earth  and  heaven,  turn 
In  widening  circles,  human  soul. ; 
Forget  the  Here  and  Now,  and  learn 
At  last  to  contemplate  the  whole." 

And  if  we  only  remembered  that  even 
a  spiritual  virtue  for  which  we  have 
prayed  grows  but  slowly  in  our  life,  we 
should  not  be  so  ready  to  give  up  the 
Christian  struggle.  The  soul  of  man  is 
hard  soil.  The  best  things  of  God — the 
fruits  of  the  Spirit — grow  in  it  fitfully. 
You  ask  for  peace,  and  likeness  to  Christ, 
and  love  to  your  neighbour,  and  meek- 
ness of  speech  and  disposition,  and 
patience;  but  do  you  ever  think  of  the 
long  road  that  lies  between  your  prayer 
and  its  answer,  and  how  great  the  dis- 
tance must  needs  be  between  the  thing 


108  PEAYER. 


you  sow  and  the  reaping  of  it  ?  Such  a 
prayer  means  that  you  are  prepared  for 
conflict  with  a  world  which  at  every  point 
resists  you  and  will  not  let  God's  things 
grow  within  you ;  that  you  are  watchful 
against  sudden  uprootings,  and  gusts  of 
temptation,  and  drowsy  hours,  and  beset- 
ting sins.  It  means  that  you  have  in  large 
part  to  answer  your  own  prayer,  to  see 
that  your  character  is  not  adverse  to 
its  spirit;  that  your  private  devotions 
are  not  contradicted  by  your  public 
habits  ;  that  your  secular  life  is  not  kill- 
ing your  spiritual  life ;  that,  in  short,  you 
are  not  praying  one  way  and  living 
another.  You  must  work  out  your  own 
salvation  in  partnership  with  God,  and 
as  the  growth  in  you  of  any  Christian 
virtue  is  a  complex  unfolding,  you  must 
constantly  watch  as  well  as  unceasingly 
pray. 

Can  we  ever  go  wrong  if,  sitting  at 
Christ's  feet,  we  learn  of  Him  our  lesson 
of  prayer  ?  Prayer  constituted  the  most 
impressive  incident  in  His  career.     It 


THE    GAIN    OP   PRAYEB.  109 

was  the  atmosphere  of  all  His  life.  He 
went  up  into  a  mountain  apart  to  pray. 
He  prayed  and  healed ;  He  prayed  and 
taught ;  He  prayed  and  wept.  Prayer 
was  the  first  and  last  act  of  every  day. 
Surely  what  was  a  necessity  and  joy  to 
Him  can  never  be  less  than  that  to  us. 
All  arguments  against  the  utility  of 
prayer  are  dissipated  by  these  two  in- 
disputable facts  :  God  is  our  Father ; 
Jesus  Christ  prayed.  It  almost  looks  as 
if  our  Lord's  quietest  times  were  when 
He  was  busy  among  the  crowd,  teaching 
them,  healing  them,  comforting  them, 
and  that  the  times  of  agony  and  wrestling 
came  when  the  day's  work  was  done, 
and  men  had  gone  to  rest,  and  He  was 
wakeful  in  the  energy  of  supplication 
and  intercession  "  with  strong  cries  and 
tears."  He  was  never  so  calm  as  when 
He  stood  before  Pilate  and  the  priests. 
He  had  gained  that  calmness  in  solitary 
fellowship  with  God. 

The    servant    in  this  regard    is  not 
greater    than    his    Lord.      Christ    has 


110  PRAYER. 

shown  us  the  way  to  pray  as  much  as 
the  way  to  live.  Prayer  with  Him  was 
an  absolute  and  loving  surrender  to  God's 
will.  He  knows  that  hesitancy  we  so 
often  feel  that  shrinks  from  accepting 
the  cup.  He  knows  how  painful  looks 
the  will  of  God  when  we  are  hoping  for 
happy  things.  He  knows  the  burden 
and  perplexity  of  unanswered  prayers. 
He  is  touched  in  all  points  as  we  are, 
and  certainly  in  this  point  of  persistent 
and  hopeful  prayer.  Have  you  lost  your 
faith  in  prayer  ?  Watch  with  Christ  one 
hour  in  Gethsemane.  His  is  a  conflict  of 
soul  not  less  exhausting  than  yours. 
He  too  has  a  fear  that  makes  Him 
almost  step  back  from  the  sorrow  He  has 
long  foreseen.  The  victory  He  gained  in 
prayer  He  will  share  with  you. 

Our  affection  for  our  friend  is  not 
shown  by  having  confidence  in  him  when 
all  appearances  are  in  his  favour.  We 
trust  him  when  all  suspect  him.  We 
vindicate  him  when  he  is  calumniated. 
Can  it  be  otherwise  with  our  feeling  and 


THE    GAIN   OP   PRAYEB.  Ill 

attitude  to  God?  To  be  true  to  Him 
when  we  never  see  Him ;  through  all  the 
slow  years  to  trust  Him  strongly  when 
His  ways  seem  strange ;  to  accept  His 
will  when  it  lies  athwart  our  fondest 
wishes ;  to  speak  to  Him  much  in  a  long 
distress  though  He  seems  only  to  listen, 
and  hardly  that,  and  never  a  hand  is 
raised  to  help ;  to  confide  in  Him  though 
it  looks  as  if  He  were  slaying  us,  and  no 
explanation  given  of  our  pain — that  is 
the  noblest  heroism  of  the  soul.  It 
brings  out  that  which  is  the  root  of  the 
highest  character  and  experience.  "  The 
Lord  lift  up  His  countenance  upon  thee 
and  give  thee  peace,"  said  one  man  to 
another  in  a  day  of  sore  fatigue  and 
loneliness.  "  Thank  you,  my  friend,  for 
your  prayer,"  was  the  reply.  "  I  hope 
I  have  learned  always  to  think  and 
speak  kindly  of  Him  behind  His  back." 
They  indeed  have  a  great  reward  who 
can  hold  to  Him  in  loving  constancy 
though  they  see  not  the  shining  of  His 
fac6« 


112  PRAYER. 


As  the  spirit  of  Christ's  life  passes 
into  our  life  our  prayers  come  from  our 
heart  with  a  steadier  joy.  Likeness  to 
Him  must  in  the  end  make  our  weakest 
prayer  more  like  His  will.  We  shall 
learn  to  pray  according  to  His  mind. 
"  Thy  will  be  done  "  will  be  in  the  heart 
of  every  prayer.  The  closer  our  corre- 
spondence with  Him  the  less  irksome  will 
gr  w  the  tasks  of  the  soul.  To  pray  His 
prayer,  that  which  has  in  all  the  Christian 
ages  been  repeated  and  loved  as  the  Lord's 
prayer,  will  be  to  pray  our  own.  The 
limits  it  imposes  on  selfish  asking  we  shall 
place  upon  our  own  desires,  and  the 
first  things  of  God's  mind  will  be  ac- 
cepted as  the  first  things  of  ours.  We 
shall  discover  how  true  it  is,  as  Maurice 
says,  "  the  Lord's  prayer  is  not,  as  some 
fancy,  the  easiest  and  most  natural  of 
all  devout  utterances.  It  may  be  com- 
mitted to  memory  quickly,  but  it  is 
slowly  learned  by  heart." 

The  early  Christian  evangelists  of 
Scotland,    on    their    long    missionary 


THE    GAIN    OP   PRAYER.  113 

voyages  from  lona,  found  their  burdens 
grow  lighter,  and  their  fears  become  less 
dismal,  and  their  hopes  break  into  a  warm 
enthusiasm,  when  they  reached  the  most 
difficult  part  of  the  way,  and  they  said  to 
one  another,  "  The  secret  prayers  of  our 
aged  master,  Columba,  meet  us  here  at 
the  points  where  we  need  them  most." 
If  we  were  but  unchangeably  confident 
in  God  we  should  be  conscious  again  and 
again  in  our  neediest  hours  of  the  in- 
breathing into  our  feeble  life  of  the 
strength  of  Jesus  Christ.  Our  faith 
would  fail  not,  because  He  prayed  for  us 
when  events  seemed  conspiring  to  make 
it  fail.  Our  life,  hid  with  Him  in  God, 
would  be  subdued,  assured,  devoted, 
adding  to  its  faith  in  Him  a  knowledge 
of  Him  that  would  make  all  our  way  a 
friendly  walk  with  God. 

It  is  told  of  Abraham  Lincoln  that 
during  the  severest  crisis  of  the  civil 
war  in  America  a  poor  desolate  widow 
came  to  him  to  beg  that  she  might  have 
restored  to  her  a  son  out  of  the  army 

P.  H 


114  PRAYER. 


whom  she  needed.  She  pleaded  her 
sorrows,  her  fear,  her  poverty,  the  help 
this  son  would  be  to  her,  and  the  good 
President  listened  tenderly  and  patiently. 
Then  in  a  low  gentle  voice  he  said  to  her, 
"My  dear  madam,  it  is  true  you  suffer; 
you  never  suffered  so  much.  I  suffer ;  I 
never  suffered  so  much.  We  all  suffer, 
and  have  got  to  suffer  until  this  nation 
is  brought  through.  We  must  all  bear 
our  part."  Then  more  privately  he  put 
into  her  hand  aid  from  his  own  purse, 
and  sent  her  away  denied  yet  comforted. 
She  felt  that  there  was  no  want  of 
sympathy,  and  she  was  roused  by  his 
generous  words  to  enter  into  the  large 
fellowship  of  suffering  for  a  whole  nation's 
cause.  Do  we  ever  think  that  through 
our  ungranted  prayers  we  sometimes  are 
being  brought  more  into  the  conflicts 
and  painful  advancement  of  the  world  ? 
"  The  whole  creation  groaneth  and 
travaileth  in  pain,  waiting  for  the  mani- 
festation of  the  sons  of  God" ;  and  if  we 
pray  to  the  suffering  Saviour  for  personal 


THE    GAIN    OF    PKAYBR.  115 

benefit  we  must  sometimes  receive  this 
sympathetic  acquiescence,  this  uplift 
into  the  fellowship  of  His  sufferings,  and 
look  forward  to  the  more  perfect  day 
when  He  shall  have  subdued  all  things 
to  Himself. 

Christ  Himself  has  described  the  ideal 
life  of  prayer  :  "  If  ye  abide  in  Me,  and 
My  words  abide  in  you,  ye  shall  ask  what 
ye  will,  and  it  shall  be  done  unto  you." 
Union  to  Him  will  give  us  the  rule  of 
prayer.  What  is  not  in  agreement  with 
His  love  of  us  cannot  be  for  us.  That 
is  what  is  meant  by  praying  in  Christ's 
name.  We  rise  for  the  moment  to  His 
spiritual  level,  we  kneel  by  His  side,  we 
put  ourselves  in  His  place,  and  we  so  try 
to  think  His  thoughts  that  we,  in  rever- 
ence and  humility,  may  imagine  what  His 
prayer  would  be.  This  too  is  the 
Christian  ideal  of  prayer,  and  it  is 
perhaps  because  we  have  but  seldom 
risen  to  it  that  our  prayers  have  been 
so  often  feeble  and  ineffective.  To  pray 
in  our  own  name  would  be  to  state  our 

H  2 


116  PRATER. 

own  feelings  and  base  our  wants  upon 
them ;  to  pray  in  Christ's  name  is  to  say 
that  we  seek  just  what  He  seeks  and 
wish  our  life  kept  free  from  all  that  He 
does  not  approve. 

It  is  on  the  heights  we  see  farthest, 
and  are  freshened  by  the  bracing  winds. 
Labour  as  we  will,  we  cannot  brush  the 
mists  away  that  gather  in  the  valleys. 
By  climbing  upward  we  look  over  them 
altogether.  We  struggle  long  and  vigor- 
ously with  some  wrong  tendency  in  our 
nature,  some  habit  that  is  fettering  us, 
and  we  do  not  see  that  it  would  quickly 
lose  its  hold  upon  us  if  we  ascended  into 
a  purer,  stronger  air. 

It  is  a  free  life  we  must  needs  live  if 
we  are  to  live  worthily  at  all.  We  have 
not  so  much  as  we  ought  to  have  of  the 
liberty  of  the  children  of  God  in  praying. 
There  are  chains  about  our  feet.  We 
move  slowly  and  often  with  a  painful 
halt.  Our  religious  progress  is  fitful 
and  unsteady.  We  forecast  too  much, 
and  we  trust  too  little.    The  promises 


THE    GAIN   OP   PRAYEB.  117 

of  God,  remember,  are  not  addressed  to 
our  reason,  but  to  our  hope  and  affection. 
They  are  not  responses  to  our  technical 
definition  of  prayer,  but  are  designed  to 
produce  in  us  that  filial  spirit  which  will 
enable  us  to  approach  God  as  children 
without  misgiving  and  disappointment. 
He  interprets  our  most  halting  prayer 
aright.  He  never  misreads  our  ignorance, 
or  is  impatient  at  our  importunity. 
But  the  more  intimately  we  know  Him, 
the  more  wisely  shall  we  speak  to  Him. 
Our  danger  to-day  is,  that  we  are  doing 
too  much  and  praying  too  little.  We 
are  tempted  even  to  make  our  good 
works  a  substitute  for  prayer.  Some 
people  are  so  much  occupied  in  serving 
Christ,  in  teaching  in  Sunday-schools, 
in  labouring  among  the  careless,  in 
combating  the  open  evils  of  society, 
that  they  have  no  time  to  pray,  or  very 
little.  Work,  even  religious  work,  is  no 
substitute  for  prayer.  The  omission  in- 
jures our  best  efforts.  It  is  quite  true 
we  can  pray  in  ^  minute,  and  be  sure  of 


118  PRAYER. 


God's  answer,  but  there  is  a  power  that 
we  acquire  by  unhurried  prolonged  inter- 
course with  God  which  comes  to  us  in  no 
other  way,  and  in  proportion  as  we  fail  to 
secure  that  do  we  fail  to  do  our  best  work. 
"  We  bow  to  the  man  who  kneels,"  says 
Victor  Hugo.  Where  is  the  holy  ground 
in  our  home,  in  our  leisure,  in  our  work  ? 
Once  in  a  week  doubtless  we  earnestly 
ask  God's  forgiveness,  and  are  perhaps 
conscious  of  a  rising  within  us  towards  a 
better  life  and  a  desire  to  be  more 
spiritual  and  serious  in  our  thoughts  and 
ways ;  but  we  give  God  the  moments,  and 
the  world  takes  the  hours.  We  exculpate 
ourselves,  we  think,  by  saying  work  is 
pressing,  and  the  day  is  short,  and  en- 
grossing duties  fill  it,  and  engagements 
must  be  met,  and  letters  written,  and 
journeys  taken,  and  friends  visited,  and 
in  the  necessary  labour  of  life  there  is  no 
margin  for  devotion.  Even  our  family 
worship  is  curtailed,  and  our  public 
worship  of  God  is  more  fitful  than  we 
can  justify. 


THE    GAIN    OP   PliAYEB.  119 

But  in  answer  to  such  excuses  may  we 
not  ask  if  there  is  not  a  life  which  is  life 
indeed  ?  Can  we  live  for  the  day  by  means 
of  bread  alone?  Busy,  say  we ;  but  are  we 
rather  beasts  of  burden  than  children  of 
God  ?  The  dross  we  toil  for  often  stains 
the  soul,  and  poisons  it  to  its  undoing. 
The  wealth  we  get  can  be  no  equivalent 
for  the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ. 
The  pleasures  of  a  season  are  not  the 
same  as  those  at  the  right  hand  of  God. 
The  two  most  devotional  men  in  the  Old 
Testament  —  David  and  Daniel  —  were 
men  constantly  employed  in  business 
and  the  cares  of  this  world  ;  and  the  two 
greatest  hearts  of  the  New  Testament, 
our  Lord  and  Paul,  were  burdened  with 
the  unremitting  service  of  man;  but 
they  gave  themselves  wholly  to  prayer. 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux  was  wont  to  say 
that  on  those  days  in  which  he  spent 
most  time  in  prayer,  waiting  long  upon 
God  in  meditation  and  supplication 
and  the  study  of  Scripture,  his  letters 
were  most  quickly  written  and  were  most 


120  PRAYER. 


IDersuasive,  his  work  among  his  converts 
and  scholars  most  successfully  done,  and 
his  own  schemes,  about  which  he  often 
had  his  forebodings,  were  widened  or  lost 
in  the  greater  purposes  of  God.  And 
there  is  more  in  that  mediaeval  example 
than  we  dream.  We  should  be  better 
men  and  women  in  public  were  we  more 
with  God  in  private.  "A  gift,"  says 
Goethe,  "  shapes  itself  in  stillness,  but 
a  character  in  the  tumult  of  the  world." 
The  gift  which  we  all  need  most  is 
spiritual  power  for  living,  enduring, 
suffering,  achieving,  and  that  gift  is  the 
child  of  solitude.  Christ  was  alone  pray- 
ing. We  ought  not  to  be  forgetful  to 
keep  our  spiritual  capacities  fresh  and 
strong.  Whatever  gives  us  higher  motives 
for  living  gives  us  higher  spiritual  power. 
Our  unrest,  our  sin,  our  grief,  send  us  to 
God,  and  again  and  again  the  feeling  is 
wakened  within  us  by  we  know  not  what 
that  life  without  God  is  lost.  "  I  have 
been  drawn  many  times,"  said  Abraham 
Lincoln,   "to    my  knees  by  the  over- 


THE   GAIN    OP    PRAYER.  121 

whelming  conviction  that  I  had  nowhere 
else  to  go  but  God.  My  own  wisdom, 
and  that  of  all  about  me,  seemed  in- 
sufficient for  that  day."  Surely  there  ii? 
nothing  incompatible  between  a  life  of 
hard  needful  work  and  a  life  of  habitual 
prayer,  and  while  it  may  be  difficult  to 
harmonise  these  two  sides  of  the  religious 
character,  the  contemplative  and  active, 
there  is  no  reason  in  the  nature  of 
the  case  why  a  man  should  not  be  a 
diligent  merchant,  or  a  woman  a  busy 
housekeeper  and  servant,  and  at  the  same 
time  live  constantly  in  God's  presence, 
and  pray  to  Him  without  ceasing.  "  To 
hem  the  day  with  prayer  will  keep  it 
from  ravelling  out  into  many  a  folly  or 


"  Pray  for  us.**  We  may  sometimes  feel 
more  hopeful  in  God  when  we  plead  with 
Him  for  others  than  when  we  ask  any- 
thing for  ourselves.  Paul's  marvellous 
greatness  of  heart  was  as  much  due  to 
the  fact  that  he  always  bore  so  many  upon 


122  PRAYER. 


his  spirit  in  intercession,  as  to  any  native 
genius  he  may  have  had  for  friendship. 
His  letters  have  interesting  catalogues  of 
names  of  people  quite  unknown  for  the 
most  part  to  the  world  of  their  time,  but 
very  dear  to  him.  Some  he  mentions  by 
way  of  remembrance,  and  some  by  way 
of  supplicating  blessings  upon  them. 
There  are  indications  that  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  pass  in  review  before  his  mind 
in  prayer  different  communities  and  men 
and  women  he  knew,  and  a  large  part  of 
his  time  was  spent,  not  in  asking  a  good 
for  himself,  but  in  imploring  divine  grace 
for  them,  "  praying  with  all  prayer  and 
supplication  in  the  Spirit  and  watching 
thereunto  with  all  perseverance  and  sup- 
plication for  all  saints"  (Eph.  vi.  18), 
"  ye  also  helping  together  by  prayer 
for  us,  that  for  the  gift  bestowed  upon 
us  by  the  means  of  many  persons 
thanks  may  be  given  by  many  on  our 
behalf." 

What  intercession  did  for  him  it  does 
for  us  all.    It  saves  us  from  spiritual 


THE    GAIN    OF   PRAYER.  123 

selfishness,  and  keeps  us  childlike  and 
humble,  and  lifts  us  into  the  wide  inte- 
rests of  God's  family  and  kingdom.  The 
state  of  our  own  heart  is  revealed  in 
our  efforts  to  think  of  the  needs  of  other 
hearts.  And  as  prayer  is  love  at  work, 
our  intercessions  are  the  evidence  we  offer 
of  our  true  devotion  to  Christ,  our  com- 
mon Lord  and  Saviour.  "  By  this  shall 
all  men  know  that  ye  are  My  disciples,  if  ye 
have  love  one  to  another"  (John  xiii.  35). 
We  cannot  intercede  for  others  unless  our 
heart  has  been  given  to  God,  and  part  of 
the  spiritual  gain  of  intercessory  prayer 
is  found  in  this,  that  it  becomes  a  mark 
of  inward  grace;  it  is  a  stimulus  to  a 
larger  and  more  Christlike  love,  and 
makes  firmer  our  union  with  Him  who 
intercedes  for  us  all. 

Prayer  is  both  oiir  duty  and  our  privi- 
lege. To  be  in  conscious  contact  with 
God  our  Father  is  our  highest  blessed- 
ness. None  of  us  can  do  without  Him. 
Our  weakness  needs  His  strength,  our 


124  PKAYER. 


evil  His  forgiveness,  our  fears  His  assur- 
ance, our  hopes  His  fulfilments.  He 
seeks  to  draw  us  nearer  to  Himself,  and 
the  forces  of  the  soul,  love  and  hope 
and  faith,  work  their  strongest  when  we 
pray. 

In  his  last  picture  Kaphael  represents 
our  Lord  at  the  time  of  His  transfigura- 
tion. Moses  and  Elias  are  reverently 
looking  on,  and  the  astonished  disciples 
have  just  been  roused  from  sleep  by  the 
brightness  of  the  light.  Down  the  moun- 
tain slope  stands  the  pitiful  victim  of 
Satanic  possession  whom  the  unbelieving 
disciples  were  unable  to  heal.  But  the 
artist,  with  a  devout  insight  into  the 
meaning  of  the  incident,  represents  our 
Lord  as  having  ascended  a  little  distance 
from  the  ground.  The  Evangelists  say 
nothing  of  this ;  it  is  a  stroke  of  imagina- 
tion ;  but  is  the  moral  meaning  of  it  not 
significant  and  true  ?  The  transfiguration 
took  place  during  prayer,  and  the  painter's 
pious  lesson  for  us  is  that  prayer  raises 
us  above  the  cares  and  anxieties  and  sins 


THE    GAIN    OP    PRAYER.  125 

of  the  world.  "  Wait  on  the  Lord,  and 
He  shall  strengthen  thine  heart."  "  They 
that  wait  on  the  Lord  shall  renew  their 
strength ;  they  shall  mount  up  with 
wings  as  eagles  ;  they  shall  run,  and  not 
be  weary  ;  they  shall  walk,  and  not  faint." 
We  need  this  spiritual  elevation.  **  The 
world  is  too  much  with  us." 

We  may  not  always  be  able  to  speak. 
Prayer  is  often  inarticulate,  but  He  who 
inspires  it  can  always  interpret  it. 
When  we  call  He  will  answer.  When 
we  confide  in  Him  He  will  honour  our 
faith. 

Pray,  therefore,  what  you  feel,  what 
you  think,  what  you  need,  and  let  your 
prayer  end  when  it  ceases  to  be  the  real 
expression  of  your  need  or  thought  and 
feeling.  Pray  with  Christ's  idea  of  God 
within  your  mind.  Believe  that  He  is 
your  Father ;  that  no  law  can  limit  Him, 
for  law  is  merely  the  manner  of  His 
working ;  that  His  unwillingness  to  give 
is  never  the  cause  why  you  do  not 
receive ;  that  the  purpose  of  His  holy 


116  PRATER. 


love  in  granting  or  denying  your  wishes 
is  to  make  you  perfect ;  that  it  is 
impossible  so  wise  and  loving  a  heart 
will  ever  be  heedless  of  your  prayer,  and 
be  mistaken  when  He  gives  or  withholds. 
The  measure  in  which  you  trust  Christ 
is  the  measure  in  which  He  helps  you, 
and  your  trust  in  Christ  will  give  tone 
and  spirit  to  your  prayer.  He  will  trust 
you  with  His  blessing  as  you  trust  Him 
for  it. 

The  important  thing  is  not  the  judg- 
ment, but  the  will,  with  which  you  pray. 
That  will  asserts  itself  in  quiet  asking, 
in  earnest  and  prolonged  seeking,  in 
vigorous  knocking,  when  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  suffereth  violence,  and  the 
violent  take  it  by  force ;  but,  in  whatever 
way  you  are  obliged  to  pray,  let  your 
will  be  unconditionally  surrendered  to 
God.  "  If  ye  then,  being  evil,  know  how 
to  give  good  gifts  unto  your  children, 
how  much  more  shall  your  Father  who 
is  in  heaven  give  good  things  to  them 
that  ask  Him." 


THE    GAIN    OF    PRATER.  127 

•*  Three  doors  there  are  in  the  temple 
Where  men  go  up  to  pray, 
And  they  that  wait  at  the  outer  gate 
May  enter  by  either  way. 

"  There  are  some  that  pray  by  asking  ; 
They  lie  on  the  Master's  breast, 
And  shunning  the  strife  of  the  lower  life, 
They  utter  their  cry  for  rest. 

••  There  are  some  that  pray  by  seeking  ; 
They  doubt  where  their  reason  fails, 
But  their  mind's  despair  is  the  ancient  prayer 
To  touch  the  print  of  the  nails. 

•*  There  are  some  that  pray  by  knocking ; 
They  put  their  strength  to  the  wheel. 
For  they  have  not  time  for  thoughts  sublime, 
They  can  only  act  what  they  feeL 

••  Pather,  give  each  his  answer, 
Each  in  his  kindred  way ; 
Adapt  Thy  light  to  his  form  of  night, 
And  grant  him  his  needed  day." 


BRASBCRT,  AGNKW,  &  CO.  hD%,  LONDON  AND  TOKURIDOB. 


Princeton  Theological  bemmary  Lioraries 


1    1012  01231    5414 


Date  Due 

F  3     '40 

F  20  .u 

w-  ^ 

mmm 

^ 

1 

.  / 

i^-^ 


